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ESSAY 






CALCAREOUS MANURES. 



THIRD EDITION. 



/ 

\ 

BY EDMUND RUFFIN 



PETERSBURG : 
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 

1842. 



Entered according to act of Congress, by Edmund Ruffln, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court 
of the Eastern District of Virginia. 






\ 



t>' 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



The object of this essay is to investigate the peculiar features and qualities 
of the soils of our tide water district, to show the causes of their general unpro- 
ductiveness, and to point out means, as yet but little used, for their effectual and 
profitable improvement. My observations are particularly addressed to the cul- 
tivators of that part of Virginia which lies between the eea coast and the falls of 
the rivers, and are generally intended to be applied only within those limits. By 
thus confining the application of the opinions which will be maintained, it is not 
intended to deny the propriety of their being further extended. On the contrary, 
I do not doubt that they may correctly apply to all similar soils, under similar 
circumstances; for the operations of Nature are direcied by uniform laws, and 
like causes must every where produce like ellects. But as 1 shall rely lor proofs 
on such facts as are either sufficiently well known already, or may easily be 
tested by any inquirer, I do not choose to extend my around so far as to be op- 
posed by the assertion of other facts, the truth of which can neither be esta- 
blished nor ovei thrown by any available or sufficient testimony. 

The peculiar qualities of our soils have been little noticed, and the causes of 
those pcculiariiies have never been sought ; and though new and valuable truths 
may await the first explorers of this opening for agricultural research, yet they 
can scarcely avoid mistakes sufficiently numerous to moderate the triumph of 
success. I am not blind to the difficulties of the investigation, nor to my own 
unfitness to overcome them ; nor should I have hazarded^the attempt, but for the 
belief that such an investigation is all-important for the improvement of our soil 
and agriculture, and that it was in vain to hope that it would be undertaken by 
these who were better qualified to do justice to the subject. I ask a deliberate 
hearing, and a strict scrutiny of my opmious. from those most interested in their 
truth If a change, in -most of our lands, from hopeless sterility to a high state 
of productiveness, is a vain fancy, it will be easy to discover and expose the fal- 
lacy of my views ; but if these views are well founded, none deserve better the 
attention of farmers, and nothing can more seriously affect the future agricul- 
tural prosperity of our country. No where ought such improvements to be more 
highly valued, or more eagerly sought, than among us, where so many causes 
have concurred to reduce our products, and the prices of our lands, to the lowest 
state, and are yearly extending want, and its consequence, ignorance, among the 
cultivators and proprietors. 

In pursuing this inquiry, it will be necessary to show the truth of various facts 
and opinions which as yet are unsupported by authority, and most of which have 
scarcely been noticed by agricultural writers, unless to be denied. The number 
of proofs that will be required, and the discursive course through which they 
must be reached, may probably render more obscure the reasoning of an unprac- 
tised writer. Treatises on agriculture ought to be so written as to be clearly 
understood, though it should be at the expense of some other requisites of good 
writing ; and, in this respect, I shall be satisfied if I succeed in making my opi- 
nions intelligible to every reader, though many might well dispense with' such 
particular explanations. Agricultural works are seldom considered as requiring 
very close attention ; and therefore, to be made useful, they should be put in a 
shape suited to cursory and irregular reading. A truth may be clearly established 
— but if its important consequences cannot be regularly deduced for many pages 
afterwards, the premises will then probably have been forgotten, so that a very 
particular reference to them may be required. These considerations must serve 
as my apology lor some repetitions— and for minute explanations and details, 
which some readers may deem unnecessary. 

The theoretical opinions supported in this essav. together with my earliest 
experiments with calcareous manures, were published in the 'American Farmer,' 
(vol. iii., page 313,) in 1821. No reason has since induced me to retract any of 
the important positions then assumed. But the many imperfections in that pub- 
lication, which grew out of my want of experience, made it my duty, at some 



IV 

future time, to correct its errors, and supply the deficiencies of proof, from the 
fruits of subsequent practice and observation. With these views, this essay was 
commenced and finished in 1826. But the work had so grown on my hands, that 
instead of being of a size suitable for insertion in an agricultural journal, it 
would have filled a volume. The unwillingness to assume so conspicuous a po- 
sition as the publication in that form would have required, and the fear that my 
work would be more likely to meet with neglect or censure than applause, in- 
duced me to lay it aside, and to give up all intention of publication. Since that 
time, the use of fossil shells' as manure has greatly increased, in my own 
neighborhood and elsewhere, and has been attended generally with all the im- 
provement and profit that was expected. But from paying no regard to the theory 
of the operation of this manure, and from not taking warning from the known 
errors and losses of myself as well as others, most persons have used it injudi- 
ciously, and have damaged more or less of their lands. So many disasters of 
this kind seemed likely to restrain the use of this valuable manure, and even to 
destroy its reputation, just as it was beginning rapidly to extend. This addi- 
tional consideration has at last induced me to risk the publication of this essay. 
The experience of five more years, since it was written, has not contradicted 
any of the opinions then advanced — and no change has been made in the work, 
except in form, and by continuing the reports of experiments to the present time. 

It should be remembered that my attempt to convey instruction is confined to 
a single means of improving our lands, and increasing our profits ; and though 
many other operations are, from necessity, incidentally noticed, my opinions or 
practices on such objects are not referred to as furnishing rules for good hus- 
bandry. In using calcareous manure for the improvement of poor soils, my la- 
bors have been highly successful; but that success is not necessarily accompanied 
by general good management and economy. To those who know me intimately, 
it would be unnecessary to confess the small pretensions that I have to the cha- 
racter of a good farmer ; but to others it may be required, for the purpose of 
explaining why other improvements and practices of good husbandry have not 
more aided, and kept pace with, the effects of my use of calcareous manures. 

E. R. 

Prince George county, Virginia, January 20th, 1832. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



When the first edition of this essay was published, it met with a reception 
far more favorable, and a demand from purchasers much greater, than the 
author's anticipations had reached ; and it is merely in accordance with the con- 
current testimony of the many agriculturists who have since expressed and pub- 
lished opinions on the subject, to say that the publication has already had great 
and valuable effects in directing attention, and inducing successful efforts, to the 
improvement of land by calcareous manures. Experimental knowledge on this 
head has probably been more than doubled within the last two years ; and the 
narrow limits of the region within which marling had previously been confined, 
have been enlarged to perhaps ten-fold their former extent. Still, the circum- 
stances now existing, however changed for the better, present a mere beginning 
of the immense and valuable improvements of soil, and increase of profits, that 
must hereafter grow out of the use of calcareous manures, if their operation is 
properly understood by those who apply them. But if used without that know- 
ledge, their great value will certainly not be found ; and indeed, they will often 
cause more loss than profit. It is therefore not so important to the farmers of our 
country at large to be convinced of the general and great value of calcareous 
manures — and to those in the great Atlantic tide- water region to know the newly 
established truth, that their beds of fossil shells furnish the best and cheapest of 
manures— as it is, that all should know in what manner, and by what general 
laws, these manures operate— how they produce benefit, and when they may be 



either worthless or injurious. Aud this more important end, the author regrets 
to believe has as yet scarcely been even partially attained, by the dissemination 
and proper understanding of correct views of the subject. Of course it is not to 
be supposed that this essay has been read (if even heard of) by one in ten of 
the many who have been prompted by verbal information to attempt the practice 
it recommends ; and of those who have read, and who have even expressed 
Avarm approbation of the work, it has seldom been found tbat their praise was 
discriminating, or founded upon a thorough examination of its reasoning and 
theoretical views, on which principally rests whatever value it may possess. 
For all persons who are so easily convinced, it may truly be said, that the volume 
embraced nothing more, and was worth no more, than would be stated in these 
few words — " the application of calcareous manures will be found highly im- 
proving and profitable." It is not therefore at all strange, that the attentive read- 
ing of a volume to obtain this truth, was generally deemed unnecessary. 

Though the first edition of this work has been nearly exhausted, the circulation 
has as yet been almost confined to that small portion of the state of Virginia alone 
in which the mode of improvement recommended had previously been success- 
fully commenced, or had at least attracted much attention. But this district is 
not better fitted to be thus improved than the remainder of the great tide-water 
region stretching from Long Island to Mobile— and to a great part of which cal- 
careous manures may be cheaply applied. It is only in parts of Maryland and 
Virginia that many extensive and highly profitable applications of fossil shells, or 
marl, have been yet made. In North Carolina the value of the manure has 
been but lately tried ; in South Carolina and Georgia, no notice of it has yet 
been taken, or at least has not been made known ; and in Florida and Alabama, 
(parts of which are peculiarly suited to receive these benefits.) it is most erro- 
neously thought that such improvements are only profitable for long settled and 
impoverished countries. The farmers of Pennsylvania have gone far ahead of 
those of Virginia in manuring with,lime — and it is believed (but upon no certain 
testimony) that in New Jersey, use has been made of the calcareous manure 
which in Virginia is called marl, as well as of the green sand, which they even 
still more erroneously call by the same name. But 'whatever may have been the 
extent of their use of calcareous manures of every kind, and however great their 
success, it is believed that our northern brethren have been as little directed by 
correct views of the operation of these manures, as those of the south, who have 
neglected them entirely. 

But though the circulation of this work will be most useful through the great 
tidewater region, which is so generally supplied with underlying beds of fossil 
shells, and so much of the soil of which especially needs such manure, still the 
assertion may be ventured that there is no part of the country where the views 
presented, if true, are not important to be known ; and, if known, would not be 
hiahly useful to aid the improvement of soils. It is to the general theory of the 
constitution of fertile and barren soils, that the attention and severe scrutiny of 
both scientific and practical agriculturists are invited ; and to the several minor 
points there presented, which are either altogether new, or not established by 
authority — such as the doctrine of acidity in soils— of the incapacity of poor and 
acid soils to be enriched — and of the entire absence of carbonate of lime in most 
of the soils of this country. 

The circumstances stated above, have induced the publication of a second edi- 
tion as a supplement to the ' Farmers' Register,' (and suited to be bound with 
either volume of that work,) which, in that form, may have the facility of distri- 
bution through the mail— and which may be offered at so low a price as to reach, 
as nearlv as possible, that general circulation which is its author's main object. 

April, 1835. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



The rapid progress of improvement made by the use of calcareous manures, 
as well as the many misdirected and less effective attempts to obtain such re- 
sults, together with the acquisition of much recent and extended information on 
the subject, all concur in requiring the new and enlarged edition of the Essay on 
Calcareous Manures, which the author now oilers to the agricultural public. 

In the few years which have passed since the issue of the preceding edition, 
it is believed that the use of marl and lime, in lower Virginia, has been ex- 
tended over thrice as much land as had been previously thus improved ; and the 
previous clear income of the farmers thus fertilizing their lands has probably 
been already thereby increased in amount by several hundreds of thousands of 
dollars, and the intrinsic value of the lands raised by as many millions. These 
great augmentations of annual profits and of the true value of landed capital, 
from this single source, if they could be accurately estimated, would be seen to 
have produced an important item of additional revenue to the treasury of the 
commonwealth. And these additions of wealth to individuals and to the state, 
would be obvious as well as real, but for the esistence o' other circumstances 
which have operated to counteract or to disguise the proper results. The most 
important of such influences will be merely r< Ferred to here in the cursory man- 
ner only that the occasion permits. 

fn the first place— besides the deservedly very low appreciation of all lands in 
Virginia^ founded on the smallness of their products, the market prices were 
formerly still more reduced by the almost universal urgent desire of proprietors 
to sell, that they might be enabled then to emigrate to the new and rich lands of 
the west. The impossibility of selling, even at the lowest valuation pric :, was 
the only thing which prevented the actual flood of emigration being so much 
more swelled as to leave half our lands unoccupied and waste. If purchasers 
had l»ut presented themselves, fully half the farms in Prince George county (and 
i' is presumed of many other counties) might have been boughi up ata considera- 
ble deduction from the lowest estimated value ; and all the sellers would have re- 
moved, with all their capital, to the western wilderness. To the then actual and 
regular flow ol emigration from the now marling district, an effectual barrier has 
been opposed by the introduction of that mode ol' improvement. All emigration 
has ceased wherever by trial of this means the cultivators of the land found their 
labors to be richly repaid. Thus, in estimating the gains of individuals and of 
the state, on this score, the comparison should be made, not with the value of 
property and population which remained twenty years ago, but with what would 
have remained now, if the then existing inducements to emigration had conti- 
nued to go on and to increase, as they would have done, with time. 

Next — the actual increase of intrinsic value of marled lands is far from being 
even yet fully appreciated, because of the generally prevailing and very erroneous 
mode of estimating the values of the increase of permanent net income Irom 
land, (as 'will be made manifest in a part of this essay — ) and but few even of 
those persons who have obtained such values bv marling their lands, would esti- 
mate them at one-fourth of their true amount. The source of any permanent 
net increase of only .*6 of annual income from land, adds $100 to the intrinsic 
value of the land. And this proposition is not the less true, and to the full ex- 
tent asseried, even though the estimate of private purchasers and se lers, and of 
public assessors of lands, may all count for the market price but a small propor- 
tion of the increased real value. 

Next— even whatever of new appreciation the foregoing influences might have 
permitted to be exhibited in the increased market price of lands, and still more 
their new real value, have been disguised, or altogether concealed, by the great 
and frequent fluctuations of all market prices of property, and by the general mis- 
directions of capital and industry, all caused by the universal individual and na- 
tional gambling (whether voluntary or compulsory,) at the maddening and ruinous 



VII 

game of paper-money banking — to which system of delusion and fraud this other- 
wise most blessed country and fortunate people are indebted for so much ol disas- 
ter, loss, and, still worse, of wide-spread corruption of habits and morals. The 
enormous apparent and illusory profits promised by this system, and by the stock- 
jobbers who alone have fattened upon the facilities it offered for fraud and plunder, 
served powerfully to depress the market price of lands, and to discourage agri- 
cultural investments and pursuits. For, whatever actual profits the improvement 
and cultivation of the soil might offer to reward the care and labor of the proprie- 
tor, the stocks of various corporations, falsely appreciated by m< ans of a bloated 
paper currency and by the arts of stockjobbers, promised much higher | rofits, 
without requiring either care, labor or risk. Thus, the higher that fictitious divi- 
dends of profits or the false values of stocks rose, and the stronger became the 
inducements to make stock in vestments, the more the prices of lands sunk (compa- 
ratively) below their true" value, because of the general disposition-to convert land- 
ed capital to stock capital. But the real and solid increase of income and of wealth 
to individuals and to ihe commonwealth, caused by the permanent improvement 
of the soil, is not the less certain, or the less profitable, because fictitious appre- 
ciations of values, caused by the fraudulent banking system, and the consequent 
speculations and madness of its votaries and victims, have been both so much 
higher and lower, at different times, as to make the amount of actud improved 
values appear small in comparison, even if they were not thereby entirely con- 
cealed. But these delusive and ruinous causes of fluctuating prices and \alues 
are now last showing their emptiness, and vanishing from view ; and whenever 
the fraudulent paper system shall be completely expos< d and entirely exploded, 
then both lands and paper money system will be estimated at their true value. 
May the consummation be speedy, complete, and final! 

But even though, if properly and accurately estimated, the true value of the 
lands already marled and limed in Virginia has been increased to the amount of 
some millions of dollars, the gain is very small compared to that which yet re- 
mains ready to be obtained. Marling has not yet been extended over the hundredth 
part of the surface to which it may be profitably applied — and liming not to the 
ten-thousand ih part of the lands of the state, to which lime may be brought. 
And elsewhere, with the exception of a small part of Maryland, the beginnings 
of marlingvonly have as yet been made. Nevertheless, these beginnings are the 
widely scattered seeds which will spring up and spread, and herea ter yield abun- 
dant harvests. In South Carolina, more especially, the use of marl ha - been at 
last commenced and is now regularly prosecuted under auspices which offer as- 
surance that the rich resources of that state, in calcareous deposiios, will not 
much longer be permitted to lie as dead capital, of which the value was not 
appreciated or known, and the existence scaiceiy- suspected by the proprietors. 
In preparing this new edition, the author has endeavored to avail himself of 
all recent lights, and to present a full and clear view of the general subject, as 
well as of all essential details. The general theoretical opinions, as presented in 
the earlier editions, remain unaltered, and of course the facts of former practice ; 
but in regard to both, while preserving the same substance, the treatment has 
been enlarged, or the views and statements extended for better illustration and 
greater clearness. Whatever of other parts of the last edition could be well 
spared, has been omitted ; and much of other additional and new matter intro- 
duced. It has been the object of the author to render the work a full and suffi- 
cient guide for the conduct of novices in marling and liming, and he trusts that 
he has not fallen very far short of attaining that object. 
December, 1842. 9 



ESSAY 



CALCAREOUS MANURES. 



PART FIRST— THEORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF EARTHS AND SOILS. 

It is very necessary that we should correctly distinguish earths and soils 
and their many varieties; yet these terms are continually misapplied — and, 
even among authors of high authority, no two agree in their definitions, or 
modes of classification. Where such differences exist, and no one known 
method is so free from material imperfections as to be referred to as a com- 
mon standard, it becomes necessary for every one who treats of soils to 
define for himself — though perhaps he is thereby adding to the general 
mass of confusion already existing. This necessity must be my apology 
for whatever is new or unauthorized in the following definitions. 

The earths important to agriculture, and which form nearly the whole of 
the known globe, are only three — silicious, aluminous and calcareous. 

Silicious earth, in its state of absolute purity, forms rock crystal. The 
whitest and purest sand may be considered as silicious earth in agriculture, 
though none is presented by nature entirely free from other ingredients. It 
is composed of very hard particles, not soluble in any common acid, and 
which cannot be made coherent by mixing with water. Any degree of 
coherence, or any shade of color that sand may exhibit, is owing to the 
presence of other substances. The solidity of the particles of sand renders 
them impenetrable to water, which passes between them as through a sieve. 
The hardness of its particles, and their loose arrangement, make, sand inca- 
pable of absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, or of retaining any valu- 
able vapor or fluid, with which it may have been in any manner supplied. 
Silicious earth is also quickly heated by the sun, which adds to the rapidity 
with which it loses moisture. 

Aluminous or argillaceous earth, when dry, adheres to the tongue, ab- 
sorbs water rapidly and abundantly, and when wet forms a tough paste, 
smooth and soapy to the touch. By burning, it becomes as hard as stone. 
Clays derive their adhesiveness from their proportion of aluminous earth. 
This also is white when pure, but is generally colored deeply and variously — 
red, yellow, or blue — by metallic substances. When drying, aluminous 
earth shrinks greatly, and becomes a mass of very hard lumps, of various 
sizes, separated by cracks and fissures, which become so many little reser- 
voirs of standing water when filled by rains, and remain so, until the 

2 



]4 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

lumps, by slowly imbibing the water, are distended enough to fill the space 
occupied before. 

Calcareous earth, or carbonate of lime,* is lime combined with carbonic 
acid, and may be converted into pure or quick-lime by heat ; and quick-lime, 
by exposure to the air, soon returns to its former state of calcareous earth. 
It forms marble, limestone, chalk, and shells, with very small admixtures of 
other substances. Thus the term calcareous earth will not be used here to 
include either lime in its pure state, or any of the numerous combinations 
which lime forms with the various acids, except that one combination (car- 
bonate of lime) which is beyond comparison the most abundant throughout 
the world, and most important as an ingredient of soils. Pure lime attracts 
all acids so powerfully, that it is never presented by nature except in com- 
bination with some one of them, and generally with the carbonic acid. 
When this compound is thrown into any stronger acid, as the muriatic, 
nitric, or even common vinegar, the lime, being more powerfully attracted, 
unites with and is dissolved by the stronger acid, and lets go the carbonic, 
which escapes with effervescence in the form of air. In this manner, the 
carbonate of lime, or calcareous earth, may not only be easily distinguished 
from silicious and aluminous earth, but also from all other combinations 
of lime. 

The foregoing definition of calcareous earth, which confines that term to 
the carbonate of lime, is certainly liable to objections, but less so than any 
other designation. It may at first seem absurd to consider as one of the 
three principal earths which compose soils, one only of the many combina- 
tions of lime, rather than either pure lime alone, or lime in all its combina- 
tions. One or the other of these significations is adopted by the highest 
authorities, when the calcareous ingredients of soils are described; and in 
either sense, the use of this term is more conformable with scientific ar- 
rangement, than mine. Yet much inconvenience is caused by thus apply- 
ing the term calcareous earth. If applied to lime, it is to a substance which 
is never found existing naturally, and which will always be considered by 
most persons as the artificial product of the process of calcination, and as 
having no more part in the composition of natural soils, than the manures 
obtained from oil-cake, or pounded bones. It is equally improper to include 
under the same general term all the combinations of lime with the fifty or 
sixty various acids. Two of these compounds, the sulphate and the phos- 
phate of lime, are known as valuable manures ; but they exist naturally in 
soils in such minute quantities, as not to deserve to be considered as impor- 
tant ingredients. A subsequent part of this essay will show why the oxa- 
late of lime is also supposed to be highly valuable as a manure, and far 
more abundant. Many other salts of lime are known to chemists; but 
their several qualities, as affecting soils, are entirely unknown — and their 

* Carbonate of lime is the chemical name for the substance formed by the combination 
of carbonic acid with lime. The names. of all the thousands of different substances 
{neutral salts) which are formed by the combination of each of the many acids with 
' each of the various earths, alkalies, and metals, are formed by one uniform rule, which 
is as simple, and easy to be understood and remembered, as it is useful. To avoid re- 
peated explanations in the course of this essay, the rule will now be stated by which 
these compounds are named. The termination of the name of the acid is changed to the 
syllable ate, and then prefixed to the particular earth, alkali, or metal with which the 
acid is united. With this explanation, any reader can at once understand what is meant 
by each of some thousands of terms, none of which might have been heard of before, 
and which (without this manner of being named,) would be too numerous to be fixed in 
the most retentive memory. Thus, it will be readily understood that the carbonate of 
magnesia is a compound of the carbonic acid and magnesia — the sulphate of lime, a com- 
pound of sulphuric acid and lime — the sulphate of iron, a compound of sulphuric acid 
and iron — and in like manner for all other terms so formed. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 15 

quantities are too small, and their presence too rare, to require considera- 
tion. If all the numerous different combinations of lime, having perhaps 
as many various and unknown properties, had not been excluded by my 
definition of calcareous earth, continual exceptions would have been neces- 
sary, to avoid stating what was not meant. The carbonate of lime, to 
which I have confined that term, though only one of many existing combina- 
tions, yet in quantity and in importance, as an ingredient of soils, as well as 
a part'of the known portion of the globe, very far surpasses all the others. 

But even if calcareous earth, as defined and limited, is admitted to be the 
substance which it is proper to consider as one of the three important earths 
of agriculture, still there are objections to its name, which I would gladly 
avoid. However strictly defined, many readers will attach to terms such 
meanings as they had previously understood : and the word calcareous has 
been so loosely and so different])'' applied in common language, and in 
agriculture, that much confusion may attend its use. Anything " partaking 
of the nature of lime" is " calcareous," according to Walker's Dictionary ; 
Lord Karnes limits the term to pure lime;* Davyf and Sinclair}: include 
under it pure lime and all its combinations ; and Kirwan,|| Rozier,1T and 
Young,§ whose example I have followed, confine the name calcareous earth 
to the carbonate of lime. Nor can any other term be substituted without 
producing other difficulties. Carbonate of lime would be precise, and it 
means exactly the same chemical substance ; but there are insuperable ob- 
jections to the frequent use of chemical names in a work addressed to or- 
dinary readers. Chalk, or shells, or mild lime, (or what had been quick-lime, 
but which, from exposure to the air, had again become carbonated,) all these 
are the same chemical substance ; but none of these names would serve, 
because each would be supposed to refer to such certain form or appear- 
ance of calcareous earth, as they usually express. If I could hope to revive 
an obsolete term, and with some modification establish its use for this pur- 
pose, I would call this earth calx — and from it derive calxing, to signify the 
application of calcareous earth, in any form, as manure. A general and 
definite term for this operation is much wanting. Liming, marling, applying 
drawn ashes, or the rubbish of old buildings, chalk, or limestone gravel, all 
these operations are in part, and some of them entirely, that manuring that 
I would thus call calving. But because their names are different, so are 
their effects generally considered— not only in those respects where differ- 
ences really exist, but in those where they are precisely alike. 

Calcareous earth in its different forms has been supposed to compose as 
much as one eighth part of the crust of the globe.** Very extensive plains 
in France and England are of chalk, pure enough to be nearly barren, and 
to prove that pure calcareous earth would be entirely so. No chalk is to 
be found in our country — and it is only from European authors that we 
can know any thing of its agricultural characters, when nearly pure, or 
when forming a very large proportion of the surface of the land. The 
whiteness of chalk repels the rays of the sun, while its loose particles per- 
mit water to pass through, as easily as sand ;ff and thus calcareous earth is 
remarkable for possessing some of the worst qualities of both the other 

* Gentleman Farmpr, page 264, (2d Edin ed.) 

t Agr. Chem. page 223, (Phil. ed. of 1821.) 

% Code of Agriculture, page 134, (Hartford ed. 1818.) 

|| Kirwan on Manures, chap. 1. 

H " Terres" — Cours Complet d'Agriculture Pratique. 

§ Young's Essay on Manures, chap. 3. 

•• Cleaveland's Mineralogy — On carbonate of lime. 

tt Cours Complet d'Agriculture, etc. par l'Abbe Rozier — Art. " Terres." 



16 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 



earths, and which it serves to cure in them (as will hereafter be shown) 
when used as a manure. 

Most of those who have applied chemistry to agriculture consider mag- 
nesia as one of the important earths.* Magnesia, like lime, is never found 
pure, but always combined with some acid, and its most general form is 
the carbonate of magnesia. But even in this, its usual and natural state, 
it exists in such very small quantities in soils, and is found so rarely, that 
its name seems a useless addition to the lists of the earths of agriculture. 
For all practical purposes, gypsum (though only another combination of 
lime,) would more properly be arranged as a distinct earth, or element of 
soils, as it is found in far greater abundance and purity, and certainly affects 
some soils and plants in a far more important manner than has yet been 
attributed to magnesia in its natural form. 

Magnesia (or, more properly speaking, the carbonate of magnesia) is 
here treated as comparatively unimportant as an agricultural earth, be- 
cause of its being rarely found, and in but inconsiderable quantities in 
natural soils, and being unattainable as a manure. It was not thereby in- 
tended to be asserted that magnesia would not be important as an ingre- 
dient of soil and as a manure, if it were abundant as the one, or at command 
for the other. From the great similarity in chemical properties of mag- 
nesia to lime, it is most probable that their action in soils is also similar. 
The alluvial soil of the Red-river bottom, in Arkansas, which is of the 
highest grade of fertility, I have found by analysis to contain between one 
and two per cent, of carbonate of magnesia, and two to three per cent, of 
carbonate of lime. The mud deposited by the floods of the Nile, and which 
forms the celebrated rich soil .of Egypt, also contains carbonate of mag- 
nesia. (Lyell, p. 223, vol. i.) Yet most writers have deemed magnesia in 
soils a cause of sterility. 

All the earths, when as pure as they are ever furnished by nature, are 
entirely barren, as might be inferred from the description of their qualities; 
nor would any addition of putrescent manures! enable either of the earths 
to support healthy vegetable life. 

The mixture of the three important earths in due proportions will correct 
the defects of all ; and with a sufficiency of putrescent animal or vegeta- 
ble matter, soluble in water, a soil is formed, in which plants can extend 
their roots freely, yet be firmly supported, and derive all their needful sup- 
plies of air, water and warmth, without -being oppressed by too much of 
either. Such is the natural surface of almost all the habitable world ; and 
though the qualities and values of soils are as various as the proportions of 
their ingredients are innumerable, yet they are mostly so constituted that 
no one earthy ingredient is so abundant but that the texture]: of the soil 
is mechanically suited to some one valuable crop; as some plants require a 
degree of closeness, and others of openness in the soil, which would cause 
other plants to decline or perish. 

Soil seldom extends more than a few inches below the surface, as on the 
surface only are received those natural supplies of vegetable and animal 
matters, which are necessary to constitute soil. Valleys subject to inun- 
dation have soils brought from higher lands, and deposited by the water, 

* Davy's Agricultural Chemistry, p. 110. Phila. ed. 1821. 

] Putrescent or enriching manures, are those formed of vegetable and animal matters, 
capable of putrefying, and thereby furnishing soluble food to plants. Farmyard and 
stable manure, and the weeds and other growth of the fields left to die and rot on them, 
are almost the only enriching manures that have been used as yet in this country. 

I The texture of a soil means the disposition of its parts, which produces such sensi- 
ble qualities as being close, adhesive, open, friable, &c. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY, ,7 

and therefore are of much greater depth. Below the soil is the sub-soil, 
which is also a mixture of two or more earths, bul usually is almost as 
barren as each of the unmixed or pure earths, because it contains very 
little putrescent matter, the only food for plants. 

The qualities and value of soils depend on the proportions of their in- 
gredients. We can easily comprehend in what manner silicious and 
aluminous earths, by their mixture, serve to cure the defects of each other ; 
the open, loose, thirsty, and hot nature of sand being corrected by, and 
correcting in turn, the close, adhesive, and water-holding qualities of alumi- 
nous earth. This curative operation is merely mechanical; and in that 
manner it seems likely that calcareous earth, when in large proportions, 
also acts, and aids the corrective powers of both the other earths. This, how- 
ever, is only supposition, as I have met with scarcely any such natural soil. 
But besides the mechanical effects of calcareous earth, (which perhaps 
are weaker than those of the other two,) that earth has chemical powers far 
more effectual in altering the texture of soils, and for which a compara- 
tively small quantity is amply sufficient. The chemical action of calcareous 
earth, as an ingredient of soils, will be fully treated of hereafter; it is only 
mentioned in this place to avoid the apparent contradiction which might be 
inferred, if, in a general description of calcareous earth, I had omitted all 
allusion to qualities that will afterwards be brought forward as all-important. 
Nothing is more wanting in the science of agriculture, than a correct 
nomenclature of soils, by which the characters might be learned from the 
names; and nothing has hitherto seemed less attainable. The modes of 
classing and naming soils, used by scientific authors, are not only different, 
and opposed to each other, but each one of them is quite unfit to serve the 
purpose intended. As to the crowd of inferior writers, it is enough to say 
that their terms are not fixed by any rule, convey no precise meaning, and 
are worth not much more than those in common use among ourselves, and 
other practical cultivators, which often vary in their meaning within forty 
miles of distance. To enable us to judge of the fitness of the names given 
to soils by others, let us examine those applied by ourselves. We gene- 
rally describe soils by making a mental comparison with those we are "most 
accustomed to ; and though such a description is understood well enough 
through a particular district, it may have quite a different meaning else- 
where. What are called clay or stiff soils, in Sussex and Southampton, 
would be considered sandy or light soils in Goochland— merely because al- 
most every acre of land in the former counties is sandy, and in the latter, 
clays are nearly as abundant. 

The conflict of definitions, and consequent confusion of terms, cannot he 
more plainly set forth, than by quoting from some of the highest authorities, 
the various and contradictory explanations of a term, loam, which is so 
common that it is used by every one who writes or speaks of soils-and 
which, in some one or other sense, each writer probably considered as form- 
ing a very large, if not the greatest proportion of the cultivated soils of his 
country, and of the world. 

"Loam denotes any soil moderately cohesive, and more so than loose 
chalk By the author of the Body of Agriculture, it is said to be a clay 
mixed with sand." [Kirwan on Manures— chap. 1.] 

" Loam, or that species of artificial soil into which the others are gene- 
ally brought by the course of long cultivation."—" Where a soil is mode- 
rately cohesive, less tenacious than clay, and more so than sand, it is known 
by the name of loam. From its frequency, there is reason to suppose that 
in some cases it might be called an "original soil." [Sinclair's Code of 
Agriculture— chap, I.] 



lg CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

" The word loam should be limited to soils containing at least one third 
of impalpable earthy matter, copiously effervescing with acids.'''' [Davy's 
Agricultural Chemistry — Lecture 4.] According to this definition by the 
most scientific writer and highest authority in chemical agriculture, if we 
except the small portion of shelly land, there is certainly not an acre of 
natural loam between the sea-coast of Virginia and the Blue Ridge moun- 
tains — and very few, if any, even in the limestone region. 

" By loam is meant any of the earths combined with decayed animal or 
vegetable matter." [Appendix to Agr. Chem. by George Sinclair.] 

" Loam — fat unctuous earth — marl." [Johnson's Dictionary, Svo. ed., 
and also Walker's.] 

"Loam may be considered a clay of loose or friable consistency, mixed 
with mica or isinglass, and iron ochre." [Editor of American Farmer, 
vol. Hi., page 320.] 

It seems most proper to cla3S and name soils according to their predo- 
minant earthy ingredients, by which term, I mean those ingredients which 
exert the greatest power, and most strongly mark the character of the soil. 
The predominant ingredient (in this sense,) is not always the most abun- 
dant, and frequently is the least. If the most abundant were considered the 
predominant ingredient, and gave its name to the soil,* then almost every 
one should be called silicious, as that earth is seldom equalled in quantity 
by all the others united. If the earthy parts of a soil were two thirds 
silicious, and one third of aluminous earth, the peculiar qualities of the 
smaller ingredient would predominate over the opposing qualities of the 
sand, and the mixture would be a tenacious clay. If the same soil had con- 
tained only one twentieth part of calcareous earth, that ingredient would 
have had more marked effects on the soil, than could have been produced 
by either doubling, or diminishing to half their quantity, the silicious and 
aluminous earths, which formed the great bulk of the soil. If soils were 
named according to certain proportions of their ingredients, (as proposed 
by Davy,f) a correct, though limited analysis of a soil would be required, 
before its name or character could be given ; and even then the name and 
character would often disagree. But every farmer can know what are the 
most marked good or bad qualities of his soils, as shown under tillage, and 
those qualities can be easily traced to their predominant ingredients. By 
compounding a few terms, various shades of difference may be designated 
with sufficient precision. A few examples will be sufficient to show how 
all may be applied : — 

A silicious or sandy soil has such a proportion of silicious earth as to 
show more of its peculiar properties than those of any other ingredient. It 
would be more or less objectionable for its looseness, heat, and want of 
power to retain either moisture or putrescent manure — and not in the least 
for toughness, liability to become hard after wet ploughing, or any other 
quality of aluminous earth. 

In like manner, an aluminous or clayey soil would show most strongly 
the faults of aluminous earth, though much more than half its bulk might 
be of silicious earth. 

The term loam is not essential to this plan, but it is convenient, as it will 
prevent the necessity of frequent compounds of other terms. It will be 
used for all soils formed with such proportions of sand and aluminous earth, 
as not to be light enough to be called sandy, nor stiff enough for clay soil. 
Sandy loam and clayey loam would express its two extremes — and loamy 

Which is the plan of the nomenclature of soils proposed by Rozier. See article 
" Terres," Cours Complet d'Agriculture, etc. f Agr. Chem. p. 139. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



19 



sand would be still lighter than the former, and loamy clay stifler than the 
latter. 

In all compound names of soils, the last term should be considered as ex- 
pressing the predominant earthy ingredient. Thus, a sandy loamy calca- 
reous soil would be nearer to loam than sand, and more marked by its cal- 
careous ingredient than either. Other ingredients of soils, besides the 
earths, or any accidental or rare quality affecting their character considera- 
bly, may be described with sufficient accuracy by such additional terms as 
these — a. ferruginous gravelly silicious loam— or; a vegetable calcareous clay. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON THE SOILS, AND STATE OF AGRICULTURE OF THE TIDE-WATER DISTRICT OF 

VIRGINIA. 

" During several days of our journey, no spot was seen that was not 

covered with a luxuriant growth of large and beautiful forest trees, except 
where they had been destroyed by the natives for the purpose of cultiva- 
tion. The least fertile of their pasture lands, without seeding, are soon 
covered with grass several feet in height ; and unless prevented by cultiva- 
tion, a second growth of trees rapidly. springs up, which, without care or at- 
tention, attain their giant size in half the time that would be expected on the 
best lands in England." 

If the foregoing description was met with in a ' Journey through Cabul,' 
or some equally unknown region, no European reader would doubt but 
such lands were fertile in the highest degree— and many even of ourselves 
would receive the same Impression. Yet it is no exaggerated account of 
the poorest natural soils in our own poor country, which are as remarkable 
for their producing luxuriant growths of pines, and broom grass, as for 
their unproductiveness in every cultivated or valuable crop. We are so ac- 
customed to these facts, that we scarcely think of their singularity ; nor of 
the impropriety of calling any land barren, which will produce a rapid or 
heavy growth of any one plant. Indeed, by the rapidity of that growth, 
(or the fitness of the soil for its production,) we have in some measure 
formed a standard of the poverty of the soil. 

With some exceptions to every general character, the tide- water district 
of Virginia may be described as generally level, sandy, poor, and free from 
any fixed rock, or any other than stones rounded apparently by the attrition 
of water. On much the greater part of the lands, no stone of any kind is 
to be found of larger size than gravel. Pines of different kinds form the 
greater part of a heavy cover to the silicious soils in their virgin state, and 
mix considerably with oaks and other growth of clay land. Both these 
kinds of soil, after being exhausted of their little fertility by cultivation, and 
" turned out" to recruit, are soon covered by young pines which grow with 
vigor and luxuriance. This general description applies more particularly 
to the ridges which separate the slopes on different streams. The ridge 
lands are always level, and very poor— sometimes clayey, more generally 
sandy, but stifler than would be inferred from the proportion of silicious 
earth they contain, which is caused by the fineness of its particles. Whor- 
tleberry bushes, as well as pines, are abundant on ridge lands— and nume- 
rous shallow basins are found, which are ponds of rain water in winter 
but dry in summer. None of this large proportion of our lands has paid 
the expense of clearing and cultivation, and much the greater part still re- 



20 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

mains under its native growth. Enough, however, has been cleared and 
cultivated in every neighborhood to prove its utter worthlessness under 
common management. The soils of ridge lands vary between sandy loam 
and clayey loam. It is difficult to estimate their general product under cul- 
tivation ; but judging from my own experience of such soils, the product 
may be from five bushels of corn, or as much of wheat, to the acre on the 
most clayey soils, to twelve bushels of corn, and less than three of wheat, 
on the most sandy— if wheat were there attempted to be made. 

The slopes extend from the ridges to the streams, or to the alluvial bot- 
toms, and include the whole interval between neighboring branches of the 
same stream. This class of soils forms another great body of lands, of 
a higher grade of fertility, though still far from valuable. It is generally 
more sandy than the poorer ridge land, and when long cultivated is more 
or less deprived of its soil, by the washing of rains, on every slight declivity. 

The washing away of three or four inches in depth exposes a sterile 
subsoil, (or forms a " gall,") which continues thenceforth bare of all vegeta- 
tion. A greater declivity of the surface serves to form gullies several feet 
in depth, the earth carried from which, covers and injures the adjacent lower 
land. Most of this kind of land has been cleared and greatly exhausted. 
Its virgin growth is often more of oak, hickory, and dogwood, than pine; 
but when turned out of cultivation, an unmixed growth of pine follows. 
Land of this kind in general has very little durability. Its best usual product 
of corn may be, for a few crops, eighteen or twenty bushels— and even as 
much as twenty-five bushels, from the highest grade. Wheat is seldom a 
productive or profitable crop on the slopes, the soil being generally too 
sandy. When such soils as these are called rich or valuable (as most per- 
sons would describe them,) those terms must be considered as only com- 
parative; and such an application of them proves that truly fertile and 
valuable soils are very scarce in lower Virginia. 

The only very rich and durable soils below the falls of our rivers are 
narrow strips of high-land along their banks, and the low-lands formed by 
the alluvion of the numerous smaller streams which water our country. 
These alluvial bottoms, though highly productive, are lessened in value by 
being generally too sandy, and by the damage they suffer from being often 
inundated by floods of rain. The best high-land soils seldom extend more 
than half a mile from the river's edge — sometimes not fifty yards. These 
irregular margins are composed of loams of various qualities, but all highly 
valuable ; and the best soils are scarcely to be surpassed in their original 
fertility, and durability under severe tillage. Their nature and peculiarities 
will be again adverted to, and more fully described hereafter. 

The simple statement of the general course of tillage to which this part 
of the country has been subjected is sufficient to prove that great impover- 
ishment of the soil has been the inevitable consequence. The small portion 
of rich river margins, was soon all cleared, and was tilled without cessation 
for many years. The clearing of the slopes was next commenced, and is 
not yet entirely completed. On these soils, the succession of crops was less 
rapid, or, from necessity, tillage was sooner suspended. If not rich enough 
for tobacco when first cleared, (or as soon as it ceased to be so,) land of 
this kind was planted in corn two or three years in succession, and after- 
wards every second year. The intermediate year between the crops of 
corn, the field was " rested" under a crop of wheat, if it would produce 
four or five bushels to the acre. If the sandiness, or exhausted condition 
of the soil, denied even this small product of wheat, that crop was pro- 
bably not attempted; and, instead of it, the field was exposed to close 
grazing, from the time of gathering one crop of corn, to that of preparing 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 2i 

to plant another. No manure was applied, except on the tobacco lots; 
and this succession of a grain crop every year, and afterwards every 
second year, was kept up as long as the field would produce five bushels of 
corn to the acre. When reduced below that product, and to still more below 
the necessary expense of cultivation, the land was turned out to recover under 
a new growth of pines. After twenty or thirty years, according to the 
convenience of the owner, the same land would be again cleared, and put 
under similar scourging tillage, which, however, would then much sooner 
end, as before, in exhaustion. Such a general system is not yet every 
where abandoned ; and many years have not passed, since such was the 
usual course on almost every farm. 

How much our country has been impoverished during the last fifty years, 
cannot be determined by any satisfactory testimony. But, however we 
may differ on this head, there are but few who will not concur in the 
opinion, that [up to 1831] our system of cultivation has been every year les- 
sening the productive power of our lands in general —and that no one county, 
no neighborhood, and but few particular farms, have been at all enriched, 
since their first settlement and cultivation. Yet many of our farming ope- 
rations have been much improved and made more productive. Driven 
by necessity, proprietors direct more personal attention to their farms— better 
implements of husbandry arc used— every process is more perfectly per- 
formed—and, whether well or ill directed, a spirit of inquiry and enterprise 
has been awakened, which before had no existence. 

Throughout the country below the falls of the river, and perhaps thirty 
miles above, if the best land be excluded, say one tenth, the remaining nine 
tenths will not yield an average product of ten bushels of corn to the acre ; 
though that grain is best suited to our soils in general, and far exceeds in 
quantity all other kinds raised. Of course, the product of a large propor- 
tion of the land would fall below this average. Such crops, in very many 
cases, cannot remunerate the cultivator. If our remaining wood-land could 
be at once brought into cultivation, the gross product of the country would 
be greatly increased, but the net product very probably diminished; as the 
general poverty of these lands would cause more expense than profit to 
accompany their cultivation under the usual system. Yet every year we 
are using all our exertions to clear wood-land, and in fact seldom increase 
either net or gross products — because nearly as much old exhausted land 
is turned out of cultivation as is substituted by the newly cleared. Sound 
calculations of profit ami loss, would induce us even greatly to reduce the 
extent of our present cultivation, in lower Virginia, by turning out and 
leaving waste, (if not to be improved.) every acre that yields less than the 
total cost of its tillage.* 

No political truth is better established than that the population of every 
country will increase, or diminish, according to its regular supply of food. 
We know from the census of 1830, compared with those of 1820 and 
1810, that our population is nearly stationary, and in some counties is ac- 
tually lessening; and therefore it is certain that [to 18b'U] our agriculture is 
not increasing the amount of food, or the means of purchasing food — with all 
the assistance of the new land annually brought under culture. h\ these cir- 

*The foregoing description was written in 1826, and first published in 1S31, and 
particular exceptions to the general correctness of the application had been even then 
recently exhibited ; and, with the passage of every year since, these exceptions have' 
been becoming more numerous anil mine important, and in a rapidly increasing ratio. 
These recent tacts of improved lands and increased production, as well as their peculiar 
causes, will be treated of subsequently. The observations and deductions presented 
in the remainder of this chapter were also of the same date as the foregoing statements, 
on which they are founded. 



22 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



cumstances, a surplus population, with all its deplorable consequences, is 
only prevented by the great current of emigration which is continually 
flowing westward. No matter who emigrates, or with what motive —the 
enterprising or wealthy citizen who leaves us to seek richer lands and 
greater profits, and the slave sold and carried away on account of his 
owner's poverty — all concur in producing the same result, though with very 
different degrees of benefit to those who remain. If this great and con- 
tinued drain from our population was stopped, and our agriculture was not 
improved, want and misery would work to produce the same results. 
Births would diminish, and deaths would increase ; and hunger and disease, 
operating here as in other countries, would keep down population to that 
number that the average products of our agricultural and other productive 
labor could feed, and supply with the other necessary means for living. 

A stranger to our situation and habits might well oppose to my state- 
ments the very reasonable objection, that no man would, or could, long pur- 
sue a system of cultivation of which the returns fell short of his expenses, 
including rent of land, hire of labor, interest on the necessary capital, &c. 
Very true ; if he had to pay those expenses out of his profits, he would 
soon be driven from his farm to a jail. But we own our land, our laborers, 
and stock; and though the calculation of net profit, or of loss, is precisely 
the same, yet we are not ruined by making only two per cent, on our capi- 
tal, provided we can manage to live on that income. If we live on still 
less, we arc actually growing richer, (by laying up a part of our two per 
cent.,) notwithstanding the most clearly proved regular loss on our farming. 

Our condition has been so gradually growing worse, that we are either 
not aware of the extent of the evil, or are in a great measure reconciled 
by custom to profitless labor. No hope for a better state of things can be 
entertained, until we shake off this apathy — this excess of contentment, 
which makes no effort to avoid existing evils. I have endeavored to ex- 
pose what is worst in our situation as farmers ; if it should have the effect 
of arousing any of my countrymen to a sense of the absolute necessity of 
some improvement, to avoid ultimate ruin, I hope also to point out to some 
of their number, if not to all, that the means for certain and highly profitable 
improvements are completely within their reach. 

The cultivators of eastern Virginia derive a portion of their income from 
a source quite distinct from their tillage — and which, though it often forces 
them to persist in their profitless farming, yet also, in some measure, con- 
ceals, and is generally supposed to compensate for its losses. This source 
of income is, the breeding and selling of slaves ; of which, ?(though the 
discussion of this point will not be undertaken here,) I cannot concur in the 
general opinion that it is also a source of profit. 

It is not meant to convey the idea that any person undertakes as a re- 
gular business the breeding of slaves with a view to their sale; but whether 
it is so intended or not, all of us, without exception, are acting some part in 
aid of a general system, which taken altogether is precisely what I have 
named. No man is so inhuman as to breed and raise slaves, to sell off a 
certain proportion regularly, as a western drover does with his herds of 
cattle. But sooner or later the general result is the same. Sales may be 
made voluntarily, or by the sheriff— they may be met by the first owner, 
or delayed until the succession of his heirs— or the misfortune of being sold 
may fall on one parcel of slaves, instead of another ; but all these are but 
different ways of arriving at the same general and inevitable result. With 
plenty of wholesome though coarse food, and under such mild treatment 
as our slaves usually experience, they have every inducement and facility 
to increase their numbers with all possible rapidity, without any opposing 



CALCARE01 s MAM liKS THEOR1 



'23 



check, either prudential, moral, or physical. These several checks to the 
increase of population operate more or less on all free poisons, whether rich 
or poor; and slaves, situated as ours are, perhaps are placed in the only 
possible circumstances in which no restraint whatever obstructs the pro- 
pagation and increase of the race. From the general existence of this 
state of circumstances, the particular effects maybe naturally deduced; 
and facts completely accord with what these circumstances promise. A 
gang of slaves on a farm will often increase to four times their original 
number, in thirty or forty years. [[ a farmer is only able to feed and 
maintain his slaves, their increase in value may double the whole of his 
capital originally vested in farming, before he closes the term of an ordinary 
life. But few farms are able to support this increasing expense, and also 
furnish the necessary supplies to the family of the owner; whence very 
many owners of large estates, in lands and negroes, are throughout their 
lives too poor to enjoy the comforts of wealth, or to encounter the expenses 
necessary to improve their unprofitable farming. A man so situated, may 
be said to be a slave to his own slaves. If the owner is industrious and 
frugal, he may be able to support the increasing number of his slaves, and 
to bequeath them undiminished to his children. But the income of few 
persons increases as fast as their slaves ; and if not, the consequence must 
be, that some of them will be sold, that the others may be supported ; and 
the sale of more is perhaps afterwards compelled, to pay debts incurred in 
striving to put off that dreaded alternative. The slave first almost starves 
his master, and at last is eaten by him— at least he is exchanged for his 
value in food. The sale of slaves is always a severe trial to their owner. 
Obstacles are opposed to it, not only by sentiments of humanity and of re- 
gard for those who have passed their lives in his service — but every feeling 
he has of false shame comes to aid ; and such sales are generally postponed 
until corhpelled by creditors, and are carried into effect t>y the sheriff, or by 
the administrator of the debtor. But when the sale finally takes place, its 
magnitude makes up for all previous delays. Do what we will, the surplus 
slaves must be sent out of a country which is not able to feed them ; and 
these causes continue to supply the immense numbers that are annually sold 
and carried away from lower Virginia, without even producing the poli- 
tical benefit of lessening the actual number remaining. Nothing can check 
this forced emigration of blacks, and the voluntary emigration of whites, 
except increased production of food, obtained by enriching our lands, and 
the consequent, increase of farming profits. No effect will more certainly 
follow its cause than this —that whenever our land is so improved as to 
produce double its present supply of food, it will also have, and will retain, 
double its present amount of population. The improving farmer who adds 
one hundred bushels of corn to the previous product of his country, also 
effectually adds, and permanently, to its population, as many persons as 
his increase of product will i'eei\ and support. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DIFFERENT CAPACITIES OF snu.s FOR RBCETVINC IMPROVE!*] 

As far as the nature of the subjects permitted, the foregoing rhapter.s 
have been merely explanatory and descriptive. The same subjects will be 
resumed and more fully treated in the course of the following general arsri- 
ment, the premises of which are the facts and circumstances that have been 



24 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 

detailed. The object of this essay will now be entered upon ; and what is 
desired to be proved will be stated in a series of propositions, which will 
now be presented at one view, and afterwards separately discussed in 
their proper order. 

Proposition 1. Soils naturally poor, and rich soils reduced to poverty by 
cultivation, are essentially different in their powers of retaining putrescent 
(or alimentary) manures; and, under like circumstances, the fitness of 
any soil to be enriched by these manures is in proportion to the degree of 
its natural fertility. 

2d. The natural sterility of the soils of lower Virginia is caused by such 
soils being destitute of calcareous earth, and their being injured by the pre- 
sence and effects of vegetable acid. 

3d. The fertilizing effects of calcareous earth are chiefly produced by its 
power of neutralizing acids, and of combining putrescent manures with 
soils, between which there would otherwise be but little if any chemical 
attraction.* 

4th. Poor and acid soils cannot be improved durably, or profitably, by pu- 
trescent manures, without previously making such soils calcareous, and 
thereby correcting the natural defect in their constitution. 

5th. Calcareous manures will give to our worst soils a power of retaining 
putrescent manures, equal to that of the best— and will cause more produc- 
tiveness, and yield more profit, than any other improvement practicable in 
lower Virginia. 

Dismissing from consideration, for the present, all the others, I shall pro- 
ceed to maintain the 

First Proposition. —Soils naturally poor, and rich soils reduced to poverty 
> by cultivation, are essentially different in their powers of retaining putres- 
cent (or alimentary) manures ; and, under like circumstances, the fitness of 
any soil to be enriched by these manures is in proportion to the degree of 
its natural fertility. 

The natural fertility of a soil is not intended to be estimated by the 
amount of its earliest product, when first brought under cultivation, be- 
cause several temporary causes then operate either to keep down or to 
augment the product. If land be cultivated immediately after the trees arc 
cut down, the crop is greatly lessened by the numerous living roots, and 
consequent bad tillage — by the excess of unrotted vegetable matter— and the 
coldness of the soil, from which the rays of the sun had been so long ex- 
cluded. On the other hand, if cultivation is delayed one or two years, the 
leaves and other vegetable matters are rotted, and in the best state to sup- 
ply food to plants, and are so abundant, that a far better crop will be raised 
than could have been obtained before, or perhaps can be again, without ma- 
nure. For these reasons, the degree of natural fertility of any soil should 

* When any substance is mentioned as combining with one or more other substances, as 
different manures with each other, or with soil, 1 mean that a union is formed by che- 
mical attraction, and not by simple mixture. Mixtures are made by mechanical means, 
and may be separated in like manner ; but combinations are chemical, and require some 
stronger chemical attraction, to take away either of the bodies so united. 

When two substancps combine, they both lose their previous peculiar qualities, or 
neutralize them for each other, and form a third substance different from both. Thus, if 
certain known proportions of muriatic acid and pure or caustic soda be brought together, 
their strong attraction will cause them to combine immediately. The strong corrosive 
acid quality of the one, and the equally peculiar alkaline taste and powers of the other, 
will neutralize or entirely destroy each other — and the compound formpd is common 
table salt, the qualities of which are as strongly marked, but totally different from, 
those of either of its constitutent parts. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. (^r 

be measured by its products after those temporary onuses have eeasod to 
act, which will generally take place before tho third or fourth crop is ob- 
tained. According, then, to this definition, a certain degree of permanency 
in its early productiveness is necessary to entitle a soil to be termed na- 
turally fi rtile. It is in this sense that I deny to any poor lands, except such 
as were naturally fertile, the capacity of being made rich by putrescent 
manures only. 

The foregoing proposition would by many persons be so readily admitted 
as true, that attempting to prove it would be deemed entirely superfluous. 
But many others wiJl as strongly deny its truth, and can support fheir op- 
position by high agricultural authorities. 

General readers, who may have no connexion with farming, must have 
gathered from the incidental notices in various literary and descriptive 
works, that some countries or districts that were noted for their uncommon 
fertility or barrenness, as far back as any accounts of them have been re- 
corded, still retain the same general character, through every change of 
culture, government, and even of races of inhabitants. They knowlhat, 
for some centuries at least, there has been no change in the strong contrast 
between the barrenness of Norway, Brandenburg, and the Highlands of 
Scotland, and the fertility of Flanders, Lombardy and Valence. Sicily, 
notwithstanding its government is calculated to discourage industry, and 
production of every profitable kind, still exhibits that fertility for which it 
was celebrated two thousand years ago. It seems a necessary inference 
from the many statements of which these are examples, that the labors of 
man have been but of little avail in altering, generally or permanently, or in 
any marked degree, the characters and qualities given to soils by nature. 

Most of our experienced practical cultivators, through a different course, 
have arrived at the same conclusion. Their practicehas taught them the 
truth of this proposition ; and the opinions thus formed have profitably di- 
rected their most important operations. They are accustomed to estimate 
the worth of land by its natural degree of fertility ; and by the same rule 
they are directed on what soils to bestow their scanty stock of manure, and 
where to expect exhausted fields to recover by rest, and their own unas- 
sisted powers. But, content with knowing the fact, this useful class of farm- 
ers have never inquired for its cause ; and even their opinions on this subject, 
as on most others, have not been communicated so as to benefit others. 

But if all literary men, who are not farmers, and all practical cultivators, 
who seldom read, admitted the truth of my proposition, it would avail but 
little for improving our agricultural operations ; and the only prospect of its 
being usefully disseminated is through that class of farmers who have re- 
ceived their first opinions of improving soils from books, and whose subse- 
quent plans and practices have grown out of those opinions. If poor na- 
tural soils cannot be durably or profitably improved by putrescent manures. 
this truth should not only be known, but be kept constantly in view, by 
every farmer who can hope to improve with success. Yet it is a remarka- 
ble fact, that the difference in the capacities of soils for receiving improve- 
ment has not attracted the attention of scientific farmers ; and the doctrine 
has no direct and positive support from the author of any treatise on agri- 
culture, European or American, that I have been able to consult. On "the 
contrary, it seems to be considered by all of them, that to collect and apply 
as much vegetable and animal manure as possible, is sufficient to ensure 
profit to every farmer, and fertility to every soil. Thov do not tell us that 
numerous exceptions to that rule will bo found, and that many soils of ap- 
parently good texture, if not incapable of being enriched from tho barn- 
yard, would at least cause more l<>-< than clear profit, by boine: improved 
from that source. 



26 CALCAREOUS MANURES -THEORY. 

When it is assumed that the silence of every distinguished author as to 
certain soils being incapable of being profitably enriched, amounts to igno- 
rance of the fact, or a tacit denial of its truth — it may be objected that the 
exception was not omitted from either of these causes, but because it was 
established and undoubted. This is barely possible; but even if such were 
the case, their silence has had all the ill consequences that could have grown 
out of a positive denial of any exceptions to the propriety of manuring 
poor soils. Every zealous young farmer, who draws most of his know- 
ledge and opinions from books, adopts precisely the same idea of their di- 
rections — and if he owns barren soils he probably throws away his labor 
and manure for their improvement, for years, before experience compels 
him to abandon his hopes, and acknowledge that his guides have led him 
only to failure and loss. Such farmers as I allude to, by their enthusiasm 
and spirit of enterprise, are capable of rendering the most important bene- 
fits to agriculture. Whatever may be their impelling motives, the public 
derives nearly all the benefit of their successful plans ; and their far more 
numerous misdirected labors, and consequent disappointments, are produc- 
tive of national, still more than individual loss. The occurrence of only a 
few such mistakes, made by reading farmers, will serve to acquit me of 
combating a shadow — and there are few of us who cannot recollect some 
such examples. 

But if the foregoing objection has any weight in justifying European 
authors in not naming this exception, it can have none for those of our own 
country. If it is admitted that soils naturally poor are incapable of being 
enriched with profit, that admission must cover three fourths of all the high- 
land in the tide-water district. Surely no one will contend that so sweep- 
ing an exception was silently understood by the author of ' Arator J as 
"qualifying his exhortations to improve our lands : and if no such exception 
were intended to be made, then will his directions for enriching soils and his 
promises of reward be found equally fallacious, for the greater portion of 
the country for the benefit of which his work was especially intended. The 
omission of any such exception, by the writers of the United States, is the 
more remarkable, as the land has been so recently brought under cultiva- 
tion, that the original degree of fertility of almost every farm may be 
known to its owner, and compared with the after progress of exhaustion 
or improvement. 

Many authorities might be adduced to prove that I have correctly stated 
what is the fair and only inference to be drawn from agricultural books, 
respecting the capacity of poor soils to receive improvement. But a few 
of the most strongly marked passages in 'Arator' will be fully sufficient for 
this purpose. The venerated author of that work was too well acquainted 
with the writings of European agriculturists, to have mistaken their doc- 
trines in this important particular. A large portion of his useful life was 
devoted to the successful improvement of exhausted, but originally fertile 
lands. His instructions for producing similar improvements are expressly 
addressed to the cultivators of the eastern parts of Virginia and North Ca- 
rolina, and are given as applicable to all our soils, without exception. Con- 
sidering all these circumstances, the conclusions which are evidently and 
unavoidably deduced from his work, may be fairly considered, not only as 
supported by his own experience, but as concurring with the general doc- 
trine of improving poor soils, maintained by previous writers. 

At page 54, third edition of 'Arator,' "inclosing" (i. cleaving fields to 
receive their own vegetable cover, for their improvement, during the years 
of rest) is said to be " the most powerful means of fertilizing the earth" 
— and the process is declared to be rapid, the returns near, and the gain 
great. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 27 

Pago 61. "If these few means of fertilizing the country [corn-stalks, 
straw, ami animal dung,] were skilfully used, they would of themselves 
suffice to change its state from sterility to fruitfulness."— " By the litter of 
Indian corn, and of small grain, and of penning cattle, managed with only 
an inferior degree of skill, in union with inclosing, I will venture to affirm 
that a farm may in ten years be made to double its produce, and in twenty 
to quadruple it." 

No opinions could be more strongly or unconditionally expressed than 
these. No reservation or exception is made. I may safely appeal to each 
of the many hundreds who have attempted to obey these instructions, to 
declare whether any one considered his own naturally poor soils excluded 
from the benefit of these promises— or whether a tithe of the promised bene- 
fit was realized on any farm composed generally of such soils. 

In a field of mine that has been secured from grazing since 1814, and cul- 
tivated on the mild four-shift rotation, the produce of a marked spot has been 
measured every fourth year (when in corn) since 1820. The difference of 
product has been such as the differences of season might have caused — 
and the last crop (in 1828) was worse than those of either of the two pic- 
ceding rotations. There is no reason to believe that even the smallest 
increase of productive power had taken place in all the preceding fourteen 
years. Nor has there been, since 1828, in the apparent products of this 
ground, any manifestation that there has been any more of subsequent than 
of previous improvement, from the vegetable manurings furnished by its 
growth. 

A still more striking proof, because of the much larger scale, as well as 
long continuance of the experiment, has been very recently, (in 1842,) 
as well as in former times, mentioned to me, as confirmation of my view's 
in this respect. Col. George Blow, of Sussex, a highly respectable gen- 
tleman, and intelligent and observant farmer, has adhered for nearly 30 
years to Taylor's "inclosing system," and with a very mild rotation, on a 
farm of 600 arable acres, of sandy soil, and originally poor ; and has 
taken but one crop (corn) in every three years. A "few spots only of bet- 
ter quality, (the sites of old buildings, &c.,) were put in wheat or oats after 
the corn ; the great body of the land having had regularly two years in 
three to rest, and to manure itself by its volunteer growth of weeds and 
grass. Very little grazing, and that but rarely, has been permitted^ There 
could have been no material mistake as to the general products and re- 
sults ; and the proprietor is confident that the land has not improved in 
production in all this long time. Yet, on soil differently constituted, Col. 
Blow has improved and increased the products, rapidly and profitably. 
These two facts, though observed more particularly and for longer time 
than any others known, agree with, and are but confirmatory of others 
presented to some extent on almost every farm in the tide-water region of 
Virginia. 

It is far from my intention, by these remarks, and statements of facts, to 
deny the propriety, or to question the highly beneficial results, of applying the 
system of improvement recommended by ' Arator,' to soils originally fertile. 
On the contrary, it is as much my object to maintain the facility of restoring 
to worn lands their natural degree of fertility, by vegetable applications, as it 
is to deny the power of exceeding that degree, however low it may have been. 

One more quotation will be offered, because its recent date and the 
source whence it is derived furnish the best proof that it is still the received 
opinion, among agricultural writers, that all soils may be profitably im- 
proved by putrescent manures. An article in the ' American Farmer,'' of 
October 14th, 1831, on "manuring large farms," by the editor, (G. B. 



2g CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

Smith,) contains the following expressions. " By proper exertions, every 
farm in the United States can be manured with less expense than the sur- 
plus profits arising from the manure would come to. This we sincerely 
believe, and we have arrived at this conclusion from long and attentive 
observation. We never yet saw a farm that we could not point to means 
of manuring, and bring into a state of high and profitable cultivation at an 
expense altogether inconsiderable when contrasted with the advantages 
to be derived from it." The remainder of the article shows that putrescent 
manures are principally relied on to produce these effects; marsh and 
swamp mud are the only kinds referred to that are not entirely putrescent 
in their action, and mud certainly cannot be used to manure every farm. 
Mr. Smith having been long the conductor of a valuable agricultural jour- 
nal, as a matter of course, is extensively acquainted with the works and 
opinions of the best writers on agriculture ; and therefore, his advancing 
the foregoing opinions, as certain and undoubted, is as much a proof of the 
general concurrence therein of preceding writers, as if the same had 
been given as a digest of their precepts. 

Some persons will readily admit the great difference in the capacities of 
soils for improvement, but consider a deficiency of clay only to cause the 
want of power to retain manures. The general excess of sand in our poor 
lands might warrant this belief in a superficial and limited observer. But 
though clay soils are more rarely met with, they present, in proportion to 
their extent, full as much poor land. The most barren and worthless soils 
in the county of Prince George are also the stiffest. A poor clay soil will 
retain manure longer than a poor sandy soil —but it will not the less cer- 
tainly lose its acquired fertility at a somewhat later period. When it is 
considered that a much greater quantity of manure is required by clay 
" soils, it may well be doubted whether the temporary improvement of the 
sandy soils would not be attended with more profit —or, more properly 
speaking, with less actual loss. 

It is true that the capacity of a soil for improvement is greatly affected 
by its texture, shape of the surface, and its supply of moisture. Dry, level, 
or clay soils, will retain manure longer than the sandy, hilly, or wet. But 
however important these circumstances may be, neither the presence or 
absence of any of them can cause the essential differences of capacity for 
improvement. There are some rich and valuable soils with either one or 
more of all these faults— and there are other soils the least capable of re- 
ceiving improvement, free from objections as to their texture, degree of 
moisture, or inclination of their surface. Jndeed the great body of our 
poor ridge lands are more free from faults of this kind, than soils of far 
greater productiveness usually are. Unless then some other and far more 
powerful obstacle to improvement exists, why should not all our wood-land 
be highly enriched, by the hundreds, or thousands, of crops of leaves which 
have successively fallen and rotted there ] Notwithstanding this vegetable 
manuring, which infinitely exceeds all that the industry and patience of 
man can possibly equal, most of our wood-land remains poor ; and this one 
fact (which at least is indisputable) ought to satisfy all of the impossibility 
of enriching such soils by putrescent manures only. Some kw acres may 
be highly improved, by receiving all the manure derived from the offal of 
the whole farm — and entire farms, in the neighborhood of towns, may be 
kept rich by continually applying large quantities of purchased manures. 
But no where can a farm be found, which has been improved beyond its 
original fertility, by means of the vegetable resources of its own arable 
fields. If this opinion is erroneous, nothing is easier than to prove my mistake, 
by adducing undoubted examples of such improvements having been made. 

But a few remarks will suffice on the capacity for improvement of worn 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



*9 



lands, which were originally fertile. With regard to these soils, I have 
only to concur in the received opinion of their fitness for durable and pro- 
fitable improvement by putrescent manures. After being exhausted by 
cultivation, they will recover their productive power, by merely being left 
to rest for a sufficient time, and receiving the manure made by nature, of 
the weeds and other plants that grow and die upon the land. Even if 
robbed of the greater part of that supply, by the grazing of animals, a still 
longer time will serve to obtain the same result. The better a soil was at 
first, the sooner it will recover by these means, or by artificial manuring. 
On soils of this kind, the labors of the improving farmer meet with certain 
success and full reward ; and whenever we hear of remarkable improve- 
ments of poor lands by putrescent manures, further inquiry will show us 
that these poor lands had once been rich. 

The continued fertility of certain countries, for hundreds or even thou- 
sands of years, does not prove that the land could not be, or had not been, 
exhausted by cultivation; but only that it was slow to exhaust and rapid 
in recovering ; so that whatever repeated changes may have occurred in 
each particular tract, the whole country taken together always retained a 
high degree of productiveness. Still the same rule will apply to the richest 
and the poorest soils —to wit, that each exerts strongly a force to retain as 
much fertility as nature gave to it— and that when worn and reduced, each 
kind may easily be restored to its original state, but cannot be raised 
higher, with either durability or profit, by putrescent manures, whether ap- 
plied by the bounty of nature, or the industry of man. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EFFECTS OF THE PRESENCE OF CALCAREOUS EARTH IN SOlLa. 

Proposition 2. — The natural sterility of the soils of lower Virginia is 
caused by such soils being- destitute of calcareous earth, and their being in- 
jured by the presence and effects of vegetable acid. 

The means which would appear the most likely to lead to the causes of 
the different capacities of soils for improvement is to inquire whether any 
known ingredient or quality is always to be found belonging to improvable 
soils, and never to the unimprovable — or which always accompanies the 
latter, and never the former kind. If either of these results can be obtain- 
ed, we will have good ground for supposing that we have discovered tin- 
general cause of fertility, in the one case, or of barrenness, in the other; 
and it will follow that, if we can supply to barren soils the deficient bene- 
ficial ingredient — or can destroy that which is injurious to them — their 
incapacity for receiving improvement will be removed. All the common 
ingredients of soils, as sand, clay, or gravel — and such qualities as moisture 
or dryness — a level, or a hilly surface — however they may affect the value 
of soils, are each sometimes found exhibited, in a remarkable degree, in 
both the fertile and the sterile. The abundance of putrescent vegetable 
matter might well be considered the cause of fertility, by one who judged 
only from lands long under cultivation. But though vegetable matter in 
sufficient quantity is essential to the existence of fertility, yet will this sub- 
stance also.be found inadequate for the cause. Vegetable matter abounds 
in all rich land, it is admitted; but it has also been furnished by nature, in 
quantities exceeding all computation, to the most barren soils known. 

4 



30 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

But there is one ingredient of which not the smallest proportion can be 
found in any of our poor soils, and which, wherever found, indicates a soil 
remarkable for natural and durable fertility. This is calcareous earth, or 
carbonate of lime. These facts alone, if sustained, will go far to prove 
that this earth is the cause of fertility, and the cure for barrenness. 

On some part of most farms touching tide-water, either muscle or oyster 
shells are found mixed with the soil. Oyster shells are confined to the 
lands on salt water, where they are very abundant, and sometimes extend 
through large fields. Higher up the rivers, muscle shells only are to be 
seen thus deposited by nature, or by the aboriginal inhabitants, and they 
decrease as we approach the falls of the rivers. The proportion of shelly 
land in the counties highest on tide-water is very small ; but the small ex- 
tent of these spots does not prevent, but rather aids, the exhibition of 
the peculiar qualities of such soils. Spots of shelly land, not exceeding a 
few acres in extent, could not well have been cultivated differently from the 
balance of the fields of which they formed parts — and therefore they can 
be better compared with the worse soils under like treatment. Every acre 
of shelly land is. or has been, remarkable for its richness, and still more for 
its durability. There are few farmers among us who have not heard de- 
scribed tracts of shelly soil on Nansemond and York rivers, which are 
celebrated for their long resistance of the most exhausting course of tillage, 
and which still remain fertile, notwithstanding all the injury which they 
must have sustained from their severe treatment. We are told that on 
some of these lands, corn has been raised every successive year, without 
any help from manure, for a longer time than the owners could remember, 
or could be informed of correctly. But without relying on any such re- 
markable cases, there can be no doubt that every acre of our shelly 
land has been at least as much tilled, and as little manured, as any in the 
country; and that it is still the richest and most valuable of all our old 
cleared lands. 

The fertile but narrow strips, along the banks of our rivers, (which form 
the small portion of our high-land of first-rate quality,) seldom extend far 
without exhibiting spots in which shells are visible, so that the eye alone 
is sufficient to prove the soil of such places to be calcareous. The similari- 
ty of natural growth, and of all other marks of character, are such, that 
the observer might very naturally infer that the former presence of shells 
had given the same valuable qualities to all these soils — but that they had 
so generally rotted, and been incorporated with the other earths, that they 
remained visible only in a few places, where they had been most abundant. 
The accuracy of this inference will hereafter be examined. 

The natural growth of the shelly soils (and of those adjacent of similar 
value) is entirely different from that of the great body of our lands. What- 
ever tree thrives well on the one, is seldom found on the other class of soils 
— or, if found, it shows plainly, by its imperfect and stunted condition, on 
how unfriendly a soil it is placed. To the rich river margins are almost 
entirely confined the black or wild locust, hackberry or sugar-nut tree, 
and papaw. The locust is with great difficulty eradicated, or the newer 
growth of it kept under on cultivated lands ; and from the remarkable ra- 
pidity with which it springs up and increases in size, it forms a serious ob- 
stacle to the cultivation of land on the river banks. Yet on the wood-land 
only a mile or two from the river, not a locust is to be seen. On shelly 
soils, pines and broom grass [_Andropogon scoparius . ? ] cannot thrive, and 
are rarely able to maintain even the most sickly growth. 

Some may say that these striking differences of growth do riot so much 
show a difference in the constitution of the soils, as in their state of fertility; 
or that one class of the plants above named delights in rich, and the other 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY, 



31 



in poor land. No plant prefers poor to rich soil —or can thrive better on a 
scarcity of food, than, with an abundant supply. Pine, broom-grass, and 
sheep-sorrel, delight in a class of soils that are generally unproductive— but 
not on account of their poverty ; for all these plants show, by the greater 
or less vigor of their growth, the abundance or scarcity of vegetable matter 
in the soil. But on this class of soils, no quantity of vegetable manure 
could make locusts flourish, though they will grow rapidly on a calcareous 
hill-side, from which all the soil capable of supporting other ordinary plants 
has been washed away. 

In thus describing and distinguishing soils by their growth, let me not be 
understood as extending these rules to other soils and climates than our 
own. It is well established that changes of kind in successive growths of 
timber have occurred in other places, without any known cause ; and a 
difference of climate will elsewhere produce effects, which here would in- 
dicate a change of soil. 

Some rare exceptions to the general fertility of shelly lands are found 
where the proportion of calcareous earth is in great excess. Too much of 
this ingredient causes even a greater degree of sterility than its total ab- 
sence. This cause of barrenness is very common in France and England, 
(on chalk soils,) and very extensive tracts are not worth the expense of 
cultivation, or improvement. The few small spots that are rendered bar- 
ren here are seldom (if ever) so affected by the excess of oyster or muscle 
shells in the soil. These effects generally are caused by beds of fossil sea- 
shells, which in some places reach the surface, and are thus exposed to the 
plough. These spots are not often more than thirty feet across, and their 
nature is generally evident to the eye ; and if not, is so easily determined 
by chemical tests, as to leave no reason for confounding the injurious and 
beneficial effects of calcareous earth. This exception to the general fer- 
tilizing effect of this ingredient of our soils would scarcely require naming, 
but to mark what might be deemed an apparent contradiction. But this 
exception, and its cause, must be kept in mind, and considered as always 
understood and admitted throughout all my remarks, and which therefore 
it is not necessary to name specially, when the general qualities of calca- 
reous earth are spoken of. 

In the beginning of this chapter, I advanced the important fact that none 
of our poor soils contain naturally the least particle of calcareous earth. 
So far, this is supported merely by my assertion— and all those who have 
studied agriculture in books will require strong proof before they can give 
credit to the existence of a fact, which is either unsupported, or indirectly 
denied, by all written authority. Others, who have not attended to such 
descriptions of soils in general, may be too ready to admit the truth of my 
assertion —because, not knowing the opinions on this subject heretofore re- 
ceived and undoubted, they would not be aware of the importance of their 
admission. 

It is true that no author has said expressly thai every soil contains calca- 
reous earth. Neither perhaps has any one stated that every soil contains 
some silicious or aluminous earth. But the manner in which each one has 
treated of soils and their constituent parts, would cause their readers to 
infer that neither of these three earths is ever entirely wanting— or at least 
that the entire absence of the calcareous is as rare as the absence of sili- 
cious or aluminous earth. Nor are we left to gather this opinion solely 
from indirect testimony, as the following examples, from the highest autlu. 
rities, will prove. Davy says, " four earths generally abound in soils, the 
aluminous, the silicious, the calcareous, and the magnesian"*; and the soils 

* Davy's Agr. Chem.. T.ecturp 1 



32 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 



of which he states the constitutent parts, obtained by chemical analysis, as 
well as those reported by Kirwan, and by Young, all contain some propor- 
tion (and generally a large proportion) of calcareous earth.* Kirwan states 
the component parts of a soil which contained thirty-one per cent, of calca- 
reous earth, and he supposes that proportion neither too little nor too much.f 
Young mentions soils of extraordinary fertility containing seventeen and 
twenty per cent., besides others with smaller proportions of calcareous 
earth — and says that Bergman found thirty per cent, in the best soil he ex- 
amined.! Rozier speaks still more strongly for the general diffusion, and 
large proportions of this ingredient of soils. In his general description of 
earths and soils, he gives examples of the supposed composition of the 
three grades of soils which he designates by the terms rich, good, and mid- 
dling soils ; to the first class he assigns a proportion of one tenth, to the 
second, one fourth, and to the last, one half of its amount, of calcareous 
earth. The fair interpretation of the passage is that the author considered 
these large proportions as general, in France —and he gives no intimation 
of any soil entirely without calcareous earth. § 

The position assumed above, of the general or universal concurrence of 
former European authors in the supposed general presence of calcareous 
earth in soils, could be placed beyond dispute by extracts from their publi- 
cations. But this would require many and long extracts, too bulky to in- 
clude here, and which cannot be fairly abridged, or exhibited by a few ex- 
amples. No author says directly, indeed, that calcareous earth is present 
in all soils; but its being always named as one of the ingredients of soils 
in general, and no cases of its absolute deficiency in tilled lands being di- 
rectly stated, amount to the declaration that calcareous earth is very rarely, 
if ever, entirely wanting in any soil. We may find enough directions to 
apply calcareous manures to soils that are deficient in that ingredient ; but 
that deficiency seems to be not spoken of as absolute, but relative to other 
soils more abundantly supplied. In the same manner, writers on agricul- 
ture direct clay, or sand, to be used as manure for soils very deficient in 
one or the other of those earths ; but without meaning that any soil under 
cultivation can be found entirely destitute of sand or of clay. My proofs 
from general treatises would therefore be generally indirect ; and the 
1 1 notations necessary to exhibit them would show what had not been said, 
rather than what had— and that they did not assert the absence of calca- 
reous earth, instead of directly asserting its universal presence. Extracts 
for this purpose, however satisfactory, would necessarily be too voluminous, 
and it is well that they can be dispensed with. Better proof, because it is 
direct, and more concise, will be furnished by quoting the opinions of a {~e\\ 
agriculturists of our own country, who were extensively acquainted with 
European authors, and have evidently drawn their opinions from those 
sources. These quotations will not only show conclusively that their 
authors consider the received European doctrine to be that all soils are 
more or less calcareous —but also, that they apply the same general ctia- 

* Ac;r. Chetn., Lect. 4 — Kirwan on Manures — and Young's Prize Essay on Manures. 

I Kirwan on Manures, article "Clayey Loam." 

| Young's Essay on Manures. 
_ § | c Composition of soils. Examples of (he various composition of soils : Rich soil ; 
silicious earth, 2 parts ; aluminous, 6 ; calcareous, 1 ; vegetable earth, [humus'] 1 ; in 
all, 10 parts. Good soil — silicious, 3 parts ; aluminous -I ; calcareous 2$ ; vegetable 
earth, .' of 1 pavt; in all, 10 parts. Middling soil [sol mediocre;'] silicious. 4 parts ; 
aluminous, 1 ; calcareous, 5 parts, loss by some atoms of vegetable earth ; in all, 10 
parts. We see that it is the largest proportion of aluminous earth that constitutes the 
greatest excellence of soils ; anil we know that independently of their harmony of com- 
position, they require a sufficiency of depth."— Translated "from the article " Terres," 
in the " Cours Complet d'Agriculture Pratique, etc par l'Abbe Rozier, 1815. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 33 

racter to the soils of the United States, without expressing a doubt or 
naming an exception. These writers, as all who have heretofore written 
of soils in this country, have uttered but the echoes of preceding English 
general descriptions of soils. They seem not to have suspected that any 
very important difference existed in this respect between the soils of Eng- 
land and of this country, and certainly not one had made the slightest in- 
vestigation by any attempt at chemical analysis, to sustain the false charac- 
ter thus given to our soils. 

1. From a " Treatise on Agriculture," (ascribed to General Armstrong,) 
published in the American Farmer. [Vol. i. page 153.] 

" Of six or eight substances, which chemists have denominated earths, 
four are widely and abundantly diffused, and form the crust of our globe. 
These are silica, alumina, lime, and magnesia." — "In a pure or isolated 
state, these earths are wholly unproductive; but when decomposed and 
mixed, and to this mixture is added the residuum of dead animal or vege- 
table matter, they become fertile, and take the general name of soils, and 
are again denominated after the earth that most abounds in their composi- 
tion respectively." 

2. Address of R. H. Rose to the Agricultural Society of Susquehanna. 
[Am. Far. Vol. ii. p. 101.] 

"Geologists suppose our earth to have been masses of rock of various 
kinds, but principally silicious, aluminous, calcareous, and magnesian— from 
the gradual attrition, decay, and mixture of which, together with an addi- 
tion of vegetable and animal matter, is formed the soil ; and this is called 
sandy, clayey, calcareous, or magnesian, according as the particular primi- 
tive material preponderates in its formation." 

3. Address of Robert Smith to the Maryland Agricultural Society. [_Am. 
Far. Vol. Hi. p. 228.] 

" The soils of our country are in general clay, sand, gravel, clayey 

loam, sandy loam, and gravelly loam. Clay, sand, and gravel, need no de- 
scription, &c."— " Clayey loam is a compound soil, consisting of clay and 
sand or gravel, with a mixture of calcareous matter, and in which clay is 
predominant. Sandy or gravelly loam is a compound soil, consisting of 
sand or gravel and clay with a mixture of calcareous matter, and in which 
sand or gravel is predominant." 

The first two extracts merely state the geological theory of the forma- 
tion of soils, which is received as correct by the most eminent agriculturists 
of Europe. How far it may be supported or opposed by the actual consti- 
tution and number of ingredients of European soils, is not for me to decide, 
nor is the consideration necessary to my subject. But the adoption of this 
general theory by American writers, without excepting American soils, is 
an indirect, but complete application to them of the same character and 
composition. The writer last quoted stales positively, that the various 
loams (which comprise at least nineteen twentieths of our soils, and I pre- 
sume also of the soils of Maryland,) contain calcareous matter. The ex- 
pression of this opinion by Mr. Smith is sufficient to prove that such was 
the fair and plain deduction from his general reading on agriculture, from 
which source only could his opinions have been derived. If the soils of 
Maryland are not very unlike those of Virginia, I will venture to assert, 
that not one in a thousand of all the clayey, sandy, and gravelly loams, 
contains the smallest proportion of carbonate of lime— and that not a single 
specimen of calcareous soil can be found, between the falls of the rivers 
and the most eastern body of limestone. 

But though the direct testimony of European authors, as cited in a 
foregoing page, concurs with the indirect proofs referred to since to induce 
the belief that soils are very rarely destitute of calcareous earth, yet state- 



34 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

ments may be found of some particular soils being considered of that cha- 
racter. These statements, even if presented by the authors of general 
treatises, would only seem to present exceptions to their general rule of the 
almost universal diffusion of calcareous earth in soils. But, so far as I know, 
no such exceptions are named in the descriptions of soils in any general 
treatise, and therefore have not the slightest influence in contradicting or mo- 
difying their testimony on this subject. It is in the description of soils of 
particular farms, or districts, that some such statements are made ; and 
even if no such examples had been mentioned, they would not have been 
needed to prove the existence, in Europe, of some soils, like most of ours, 
destitute of calcareous earth. These facts do not oppose my argument. I 
have not asserted, (nor believed, since I have endeavored to investigate this 
subject,) that there were not soils in Europe, and perhaps many extensive 
districts, containing no calcareous earth. My argument merely maintains, 
that these facts would not be inferred, but the contrary, by any general and 
cursory reader of the agricultural treatises of Europe with which we are 
best acquainted. It has not been my purpose to inquire as to the existence, 
or extent, of soils of this kind in Europe. But judging from the indirect 
testimony furnished by accounts of the mineral and vegetable productions, 
in general descriptions of different countries, I would infer that soils 
having no calcareous earth were often found in Scotland and the northern 
part of Germany, and that they were comparatively rare in England and 
France. 

With my early impressions of the nature and composition of soils, de- 
rived in like manner from the general descriptions given in books, it was 
with surprise, and some distrust, that, when first attempting to analyze soils, 
in 1817, I found most of the specimens entirely destitute of calcareous 
"earth. The trials were repeated with care and accuracy, on soils from 
various places, until I felt authorized to assert, without fear of contradiction, 
that no naturally poor soil, below the falls of the rivers, contains the small- 
est proportion of calcareous earth. Nor do I believe that any exception to 
this peculiarity of constitution can be found in any poor soil above the 
falls ; but though these soils are far more extensive and important in other re- 
spects, they are beyond the district within the limits of which I propose to 
confine my investigation. 

These results are highly important, whether considered merely as serving 
to establish my proposition, or as showing a radical difference between 
most of our soils, and those of the best cultivated parts of Europe. Putting 
aside my argument to establish a particular theory of improvement, the 
ascertained fact of the universal absence of calcareous earth in our poor 
soils leads to this conclusion, that profitable as calcareous manures have 
been found to be in countries where the soils are generally calcareous in 
some degree, they must be far more so on our soils that are quite destitute 
of that necessary earth. 



CHAPTER V. 

RESULTS OF THE CHEMICAL EXAMINATIONS OP VARIOUS SOIL:* 

Propositus 2. — ronlin uech 

The certainty of any results of chemical anatysis would be doubted by 
most persons who have paid no attention to the means employed for such 
operations; and their incredulity will be the more excusable, when such 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 35 

results are reported by one knowing very little of the science of chemistry, 
and whose limited knowledge was gained without aid or instruction, and 
was sought solely with the view of pursuing this investigation. Appearing 
under such disadvantages, it is therefore the more incumbent on me to 
show my claim to accuracy, or to so explain my method as to enable others 
to detect its errors, if any exist. To analyze a specimen of soil completely 
requires an amount of scientific acquirement and practical skill to which I 
make no pretension. But merely to ascertain the absence of calcareous 
earth, (or carbonate of lime>) or, if present, to find its quantity, requires 
but little skill, and less science. 

The methods recommended by different agricultural chemists for ascer- 
taining the proportion of calcareous earth in soils agree in all material 
points. Their process will be described, and made as plain as possible. 
A specimen of soil of convenient size is dried, pounded, and weighed, and 
then thrown into muriatic acid diluted with three or four times its quantity 
of water. The acid combines with, and dissolves the lime of the calcareous 
earth, and its other ingredient, the carbonic acid, being disengaged, rises 
through the liquid in the form of gas, or air, and escapes with effervescence. 
After the mixture has been well stirred, and has stood until all efferves- 
cence is over, (the fluid still being somewhat acid to the taste, to prove 
that enough acid had been used, by some excess being left,) the whole is 
poured into a piece of blotting paper, folded so as to fit within a glass fun- 
nel. The fluid containing the dissolved lime passes through the paper, 
leaving behind the clay and silicious sand, and any other solid matter ; over 
which, pure water is poured. and passed off several times, so as to wash off 
all remains of the dissolved lime. These filtered washings are added to 
the solution, to all of which is then poured a solution of carbonate of potash. 
The two dissolved salts thus thrown together, {muriate of lime composed 
of muriatic acid and lime, and carbonate of potash, composed of carbonic 
acid and potash,) immediately decompose each other, and form two new 
combinations. The muriatic acid leaves the lime, and combines with the 
potash, for which it has a stronger attraction— and the muriate of potash 
thus formed, being a soluble salt, remains dissolved and invisible in the 
water. The lime and carbonic acid being in contact, when let loose by 
their former partners, instantly unite, and form carbonate of lime, or calca- 
reous earth, which being insoluble, falls to the bottom. This precipitate 
is then separated by filtering paper, is washed, dried and weighed, and thus 
shows the proportion of carbonate of lime contained in the soil.* 

In this process, the carbonic acid which first composed part of the calca- 
reous earth, escapes into the air, and another supply ;s afterwards furnished 
from the decomposition of the carbonate of potash. But this change of 
one of its ingredients does not alter the quantity of the calcareous earth, 
which is always composed of certain invariable proportions of its two 
component parts ; and when all the lime has been precipitated as above 
directed, it will necessarily be combined with precisely its first quantity of 
carbonic acid. 9 

This operation is so simple, and the means for conducting it so easy to 
obtain, that it will generally be the most convenient mode for finding the 
proportion of calcareous earth in those manures that are known to contain 
it abundantly, and where an error of a few grains cannot be very material. 
But if a very accurate result is necessary, this method will not serve, on ac- 
count of several causes of error which always occur. Should no calcareous 

* More full directions for the analysis of soils may be found in Kirwan's Essay on 
Manures, Rozier's Cours Complet, 8cc, and Davy's Agricultural Chemistry. 



36 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 



earth be present in a soil thus analyzed, the muriatic acid will take up a 
small quantity of aluminous earth, which will be precipitated by the car- 
bonate of potash, and without further investigation, would be considered 
as so much calcareous earth. And if any compounds of lime and vegeta- 
ble acids are present, (which for reasons hereafter to be stated, I believe to 
be not uncommon in soils,) some portion of them may be dissolved, and 
appear in the result as carbonate of lime, though not an atom of that sub- 
stance was in the soil. Thus, every soil examined by this method of solu- 
tion and precipitation will yield some small result of what would appear as 
carbonate of lime, though actually destitute of such an ingredient. The 
inaccuracies of this method were no doubt known (though passed over 
without notice) by Davy, and other men of science who have recommended 
its use; but as they considered calcareous earth merely as one of the 
ear.thy ingredients of soil, operating mechanically, (as do sand and clay,) 
on the texture of the soil, they would scarcely suppose that a difference of 
a grain or two could materially affect the practical value of an analysis, or 
the character of the soil under examination.* 

The pneumatic apparatus proposed by Davy, as another means for 
showing the proportion of calcareous earth in soils, is liable to none of 
these objections ; and when some other causes of error peculiar to this 
method, are known and guarded against, its accuracy is almost perfect, in 
ascertaining the quantity of calcareous earth— to which substance alone 
its use is limited. The following representation and description will make 
the operation quite clear. 




"A, B, C, D, represent the different parts of this apparatus, A represents the bottle 
for receiving the soil. B the bottle containing the acid, furnished with a stop-cock 
C the tube connected with a flaccid bladder. D the graduated measure. E the bottle 
for containing the bladder. When this instrument is used, a given quantity of soil is 
introduced into A. B is filled with muriatic acid diluted with an equal quantity of water • 
and the stop-cock being closed, is connected with the upper orifice of A, which is 



" Chalks, calcareous marls, or powdered limestone, act merely by forming a useful 
earthy ingredient in the soil, and their efficacy is proportioned to the deficiency of calca- 
reous matter, which in larger or smaller quantities seems to be an essential ingredient of 
alljerlile soils; necessary perhaps to their proper texture, and as an ingredient in the 
organs of plants [Davy's Agr. Chem. page 21-and further on he says] " Chalk and 
marl or carbonate of lime only improve the texture of a soil, or its relation to absorption ; 
it acts merely as one of Us earthy ingredients."' 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 37 

ground to receive it. The tube C is introduced into the lower orifice of A, and the 
bladder connected with it placed in its flaccid state into E, which is filled with water. 
The graduated measure is placed under the tube of E. When the stop-cock of B is 
turned, the acid tlows into A, and acts upon the soil ; the elastic fluid generated passes 
through C into the bladder, and displaces a quantity of water in E equal to it in bulk, 
and this water flows through the tube into the graduated measure; and gives by its 
volume the indication of the proportion of carbonic acid disengaged from the soil ; for 
every ounce measure of which two grain3 of carbonate of lime may be estimated." — 
Davy's Agr. Chem. 

The correctness of this mode of analysis depends on two well-established 
facts in chemistry: 1st, That the component parts of calcareous earth al- 
ways bear the same proportion to each other, and these proportions are as 
forty-four parts (by weight) of carbonic acid, to fifty-six of lime. 2d, 
That the carbonic acid gas which two grains of calcareous earth will yield 
is equal in bulk to one ounce of fresh water. The process, with the aid of 
this apparatus, disengages, confines, and measures the gas evolved ; and for 
every measure equal to the bulk of an ounce of water, the operator has 
but to allow two grains of calcareous earth in the soil acted on. It is 
evident that the result can indicate the presence of lime in no other com- 
bination except that which forms calcareous earth ; nor of any other earth, 
except carbonate of magnesia, which, if present, might be mistaken for 
calcareous earth, but which is too rare, and occurs in proportions too small, 
to cause any material error in ordinary cases, and in soils of this region. 

But if it be only desired to know whether calcareous earth is entirely 
wanting in any soil — or to test the truth of my assertion that so great a 
proportion of our soils are destitute of that earth— it may be done with far 
more ease than by either of the foregoing methods, and without apparatus 
of any kind. Let a handful of the soil (without drying or weighing) be 
thrown into a large drinking glass, containing enough of pure water to 
cover the soil about two inches. Stir it until all the lumps have disappear- 
ed, and the water has certainly taken the place of all the atmospheric air 
which the soil had enclosed. Remove any vegetable fibres, or froth, from 
the surface of the liquid, so as to have it clear. Then pour in gently about 
a table spoonful of undiluted muriatic acid, which by its greater weight 
will sink, and penetrate the soil, without any agitation being necessary for 
that purpose. If any calcareous earth is present it will quickly begin to 
combine with the acid, throwing off its carbonic acid in gas, which cannot 
fail to be observed as it escapes, as the gas that eight grains only of calca- 
reous earth would throw out, would be equal in bulk to a gill measure. 
Indeed, the product of only a single grain of calcareous earth, would be 
abundantly plain to the eye of the careful operator, though it might be the 
whole amount of gas from two thousand grains of soil. If no efferves- 
cence is seen even after adding more acid and gently stirring the mixture, 
then it is absolutely certain that the soil contained not the smallest portion 
of carbonate of lime^nor of carbonate of magnesia, the only other substance 
which could possibly be mistaken for it. 

The examinations of all the soils that will be here mentioned were made 
in this pneumatic apparatus, except some of those which evidently evolved 
no gas, and when no other result was required. As calcareous earth is 
plainly visible to the eye in all shelly soils, they only need examination to 
ascertain its proportion. A few examples will show what proportions we 
may find, and how greatly they vary, even in soils apparently of equal value. 

1. Soil, a black clayey loam, from the top of the high knoll at the end of 
Coggins Point, on James-river, containing fragments of muscle shells 
throughout. Never manured and supposed to have been under scourging 
cultivation and close grazing from the first settlement of the country ; then 

5 



38 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 

(1818) capable of producing twenty-five or thirty bushels of corn — and the 
soil well suited to wheat. One thousand grains, cleared by a fine sieve of 
all coarse shelly matter, (as none can act on the soil until minutely divided,) 
yielded sixteen ounce measures of carbonic acid gas, which showed the 
finely divided calcareous earth to be thirty-two grains. 

2. One thousand grains of similar soil from another part of the same 
field, treated in the same manner, gave twenty-four grains of finely divided 
calcareous earth. 

3. From the east end of a small island, at the end of Coggins Point, 
surrounded by the river and tide marsh. Soil, dark brown loam, much 
lighter than the preceding specimens, though not sandy — under like ex- 
hausting cultivation — then capable of bringing thirty to thirty-five bushels 
of corn — not a good wheat soil, ten or twelve bushels being probably a full 
crop. One thousand grains yielded eight grains of coarse shelly matter, and 
eighty-two of finely divided calcareous earth. 

4. From a small spot of sandy soil, almost bare of vegetation, and inca- 
pable of producing any grain, though in the midst of very rich land, and 
cleared but a few years. Some small fragments of fossil sea-shells being 
visible, proved this barren spot to be calcareous, which induced its exa- 
mination. Four hundred grains yielded eighty-seven of calcareous earth 
— nearly twenty-two per cent. This soil was afterwards dug and carried 
out as manure. 

5. Black friable loam, fr&in Indian Fields, on York-river. The soil was 
a specimen of a field of considerable extent, mixed throughout with oyster 
shells. Though light and mellow, the soil did not appear to be sandy. 
Rich, durable, and long under exhausting cultivation. 

1260 grains of soil yielded 
1 68 — of coarse shelly matter, separated mechanically, 

8 — finely divided calcareous earth. 
The remaining solid matter, carefully separated, (by agitation and settling 
in water,) consisted of 
1 30 grains of fine clay, black with putrescent matter, and which lost more 

than one-fourth of its weight by being exposed to a red heat, 
875 — white sand, moderately fine, 
20 — very fine sand, 
36 — lost in the process. 

1061 

6. Oyster shell soil of the best quality, from the farm of Wills Cowper, 
Esq., on Nansemond river— never manured, and supposed to have been cul- 
tivated in corn as often as three years in four, since the first settlement of 
the country — now yields (by actual measurement) thirty bushels of corn to 
the acre —but is very unproductive in wheat. A specimen taken from the 
surface, to the depth of six inches, weighed altogether ^ 

242 dwt., which consisted of 



126 — of shells and their fragments, separated by the sieve, 
116 — remaining finely divided soil. 
Of the finely divided part, 500 grains consisted of 

18 grains of carbonate of lime, 
330 — silicious sand— none very coarse, 

94 — impalpable aluminous and silicious earth, 

35 — putrescent vegetable matter— none coarse or unrotted, 

23 — loss, 

500 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 39 

It is unnecessary to cite any particular trials of our poor soils, as it has 
been stated, in the preceding chapter, that all are entirely destitute of calca- 
reous earth— excluding the rare, but well marked exceptions of its great 
excess, of which an example has been given in the soil marked 4, in the 
foregoing examinations. 

Unless then I am mistaken in supposing that these facts are universally 
true, the certain results of chemical analysis, as well as more extended ge- 
neral observation, completely establish these general rules— viz. : 

1st. That all calcareous soils are naturally fertile and durable in a very 
high degree — and, 

2d. That all soils naturally poor are entirely destitute of calcareous 
earth. 

It then can scarcely be denied that calcareous earth must be the cause 
of the fertility of the one class of soils, and that the want of it produces the 
poverty of the other, dualities that always thus accompany each other 
cannot be otherwise than cause and effect. If further proof is wanting, it 
can be safely promised to be furnished when the practical application of 
calcareous manures to poor soils will be treated of, and the effects stated. 

These deductions are then established as to all calcareous soils, and all 
poor soils — which two classes comprise nine-tenths of all. This alone 
would open a wide field for the practical exercise of the truths we have 
reached. But still there remain strong objections and stubborn facts op- 
posed to the complete proof and universal application of the proposition 
now under consideration, and consequently to the theory which that pro- 
position is intended to support. The whole difficulty will be apparent at 
once when I now proceed to state that nearly all of our best soils, such as 
are very little if at all inferior in value to the small portion of shelly lands, 
are as destitute of calcareous earth (carbonate of lime) as the poorest. So 
far as I have examined, this deficiency is no less general in the richest 
alluvial lands of the upper country— and, what will be deemed by some as 
incredible, by far the greater part of the rich limestone soils between the 
Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains are equally destitute of calcareous 
earth. These facts were not named before, to avoid embarrassing the dis- 
cussion of other points— nor can they now be explained, and reconciled 
with my proposition, except through a circuitous and apparently digressive 
course of reasoning. They have not been kept out of view, nor slurred 
over, to weaken their force, and are now presented in all their strength. 
These difficulties will be considered, and removed, in the following chapters. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHEMICAL EXAMINATION OF RICH SOILS CONTAINING NO CALCAREOUS EARTH. 

Proposition 2— continued. 

Under common circumstances, when any disputant admits facts that 
seem to contradict his own reasoning, such admission is deemed abundant 
evidence of their existence. But though now placed exactly in this situa- 
tion, the facts admitted by me are so opposed to all that scientific agricul- 
turists have taught us to expect, that it is necessary for me to show the 
grounds on which my admission rests. Few would have believed in the 
absence of calcareous earth in all our poor soils, forming as they do the 



4Q CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 

much larger part of all this region— and far more strange is it that the same 
deficiency should extend to such rich soils as some that will be here cited. 
The following specimens, taken from well known and very fertile soils, 
were found to contain no calcareous earth. Many trials of other rich soils 
have yielded like results— and, indeed, I have never found calcareous earth 
in any soil below the falls of the rivers, in which, or near which, some par- 
ticles of shells were not visible. 

1. Soil from Eppes' Island, which lies in James-river, near City Point; 
light and friable (but not silicious) brown loam, rich and durable. The sur- 
face is not many feet above the highest tides, and, like most of the best river 
lands, this tract seems to have been formed by alluvion many ages ago, but 
which may be termed recent, when compared to the general formation of 
the tide-water district. 

2. Black silicious loam from the celebrated lands on Back-river, near 
Hampton. 

3. Soil from rich land on Pocoson-river, York county. 

4. Black clay vegetable soil, from a fresh- water tide marsh on James- 
river— formed by recent alluvion. 

5. Alluvial soil of first-rate fertility above the falls of James-river— dark 
brown clay loam, from the valuable and extensive body of bottom land 
belonging to General J. H. Cocke, of Fluvanna. 

The most remarkable facts of the absence of calcareous earth are to be 
found in the lime-stone soils, between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany moun- 
tains. Of these, I will report all that I have examined ; and none contained 
any calcareous earth, unless when the contrary will be stated. 

Before the first of these trials was made, I supposed (as probably most 
other persons do) that lime-stone soil was necessarily calcareous, and in a 
' high degree. It is difficult to get rid of this impression entirely— and it 
may seem a contradiction in terms to say that a lime-stone soil is not calca- 
reous. This I cannot avoid. I must take the term lime-stone soil as custom 
has already fixed it. But it should not be extended to any soils except 
those which are so near to lime-stone rock, as in some measure to be there- 
by affected in their qualities and value. 

1 to 6. Lime-stone soils selected in the neighborhood of Lexington, Vir- 
ginia, by Professor Graham, with the view of enabling me to investigate 
this subject. All the specimens were from first-rate soils, except one, which 
was from land of inferior value. One of the specimens, Mr. Graham's de- 
scription stated to be " taken from a piece of land so rocky [with lime-stone] 
as to be unfit for cultivation, at least with the plough. I could scarcely 
select a specimen which I would expect to be more strongly impregnated 
with calcareous earth." This specimen, by two separate trials, yielded 
only one grain of calcareous earth, from one thousand of soil. The other 
five soils contained none. The same result was obtained from 

7. A specimen of alluvial land on North-river, near Lexington. 

8. Brown loam from the Sweet Spring valley, remarkable for its extra- 
ordinary productiveness and durability. It is of alluvial formation, and be- 
fore it was drained, must have been often covered and saturated by the 
Sweet Spring and other mineral waters, which hold lime in solution. The 
surrounding high land is of lime-stone soil. Of this specimen, taken from 
about two hundred yards below the Sweet Spring, from land long culti- 
vated every year, three hundred and sixty grains yielded not a particle of 
calcareous earth. It contained an unusually large proportion of oxide of 
iron, though my imperfect means enabled me to separate and collect only 
eight grains, the process evidently wasting several more. 

About a mile lower down, drains were then making (in 1826) to reclaim 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 4] 

more of this rich valley from the overflowing waters. Another specimen 
was taken from the bottom of a ditch just opened, eighteen inches below 
the surface. It was a black loam, and exhibited to the eye some very dimi- 
nutive fresh-water shells, (perriwinkles, about one tenth of an inch in 
length,) and many of their broken fragments. This gave, from two hun- 
dred grains, seventy-four of calcareous earth. But this cannot fairly be 
placed on the same footing with the other soils, as it had obviously been 
once the bottom of a stream, or lake, and the collection and deposite of so 
large and unusual a proportion of calcareous matter seemed to be of ani- 
mal formation. Both these specimens were selected at my request by one 
of our best farmers, and who also furnished a written description of the 
soils, and their situation. 

9. Wood-land, west of Union, Monroe county. Soil, a black clay loam, 
lying on, but not intermixed at the surface with lime-stone rock. Sub-soil, 
yellowish clay. The rock at this place, a foot below the surface. Principal 
growth, sugar maple, white walnut, and oak. This and the next specimen 
are from one of the richest tracts of high land that I have seen. 

10. Soil similar to the last and about two hundred yards distant. Here 
the lime-stone showed above the surface, and the specimen was taken from 
between two large masses of fixed rock, and about a foot distant from 
each. 

1 1 . Black rich soil, from wood-land between the Hot and Warm Springs, 
in Bath county. The specimen was part of what was in contact with a 
mass of lime-stone. 

12. Soil from the western foot of the Warm Spring mountain, on a gen- 
tle slope between the court-house and the road, and about one hundred and 
fifty yards from the Warm Bath. Rich brown loam, containing many 
small pieces of lime-stone, but no finely divided calcareous earth. 

13. A specimen taken two or three hundred yards from the last, and 
also at the foot of the mountain. Soil, a rich black loam, full of small frag- 
ments of lime-stone of different sizes, between that of a nutmeg and small 
shot. The land had never been broken up for cultivation. One thousand 
grains contained two hundred and forty grains of small stone or gravel, 
mostly lime-stone, separated mechanically, and sixty-nine grains of finely 
divided calcareous earth. 

14. Black loamy clay, from the excellent wheat soil adjoining the town 
of Bedford, in Pennsylvania : the specimen taken from beneath and in con- 
tact with lime-stone. One thousand grains yielded less than one grain of 
calcareous earth. 

1 5. A specimen from within a few yards of the last, but not in contact 
with lime-stone, contained no calcareous earth ; neither did the red clay 
sub-soil, six inches below the surface. 

16. Very similar soil, but much deeper, adjoining the principal street of 
Bedford— the specimen taken from eighteen inches below the surface, and 
adjoining a mass of lime-stone. A very small disengagement of gas indi- 
cated the presence of calcareous earth— but certainly less than one grain in 
one thousand, and perhaps not half that quantity. 

17. Alluvial soil on the Juniata, adjoining Bedford. 

18. Alluvial vegetable soil near the stream flowing from all the Saratoga 
Mineral Springs, and necessarily often covered and soaked by those wa- 
ters, and 

19. Soil taken from the bed of the same stream— neither contained any 
portion of carbonate of lime. 

Thus it appears that of these nineteen specimens of soils, only four con- 
tained calcareous earth, and three of these four in exceedingly small pro- 



42 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 

portions. It should be remarked that all these were selected from situations 
which, from their proximity to calcareous rock, or exposure to calcareous 
waters, were supposed most likely to present highly calcareous soils. If 
five hundred specimens had been taken, without choice, even from what are 
commonly called lime-stone soils, (merely because they are not very distant 
from lime-stone rock, or springs of lime-stone water,) the analysis of that 
whole number would be less likely to show calcareous earth, than the fore- 
going short list. I therefore feel justified, from my own few examinations, 
and unsupported by any other authority, to pronounce that calcareous 
earth will very rarely be found in any soils between the falls of our rivers 
and the navigable western waters. In a few specimens of some of the best 
soils from the borders of the Mississippi and its tributary rivers, I have 
since found calcareous earth present in all— but in very small proportions, 
and in no case exceeding two per cent. 

When the total deficiency of carbonate of lime, in nearly all the soils of 
Virginia, was first asserted, as above, in the earliest publication of this 
essay, (1821, in American Farmer, vol. Hi.,) the proposition was so entirely 
new, and so opposed to all inferences from authority then existing, that 
it was indispensably necessary to adduce my facts, as is done above, to 
sustain the otherwise unsustained doctrine. And such support, for the 
same reason, continued to be wanting through the two next editions. Now 
(in 1842) the case is altogether different. The fact of the absence of car- 
bonate of lime, as generally as I had assumed, through the eastern or 
seaward slope of the United States, and especially in New England, has 
been confirmed by all the analyses of soils which have been since made 
by Professor Hitchcock and other accurate scientific investigators ; and the 
proposition, however untenable or incredible it might have been deemed 
before, is now universally admitted, and indeed is placed beyond question 
o,r doubt, as an important feature in the chemical constitution of soils. 

The only soils of considerable extent of surface which, from the speci- 
mens that I have examined, appear to be highly calcareous, and to agree in 
that respect with many European soils, are from the prairies, those lands 
of the south-west which, whether rich or poor, are remarkable for being de- 
stitute of trees, and covered with grass, so as to form natural meadows. 
The examinations were made but recently, (in 1834,) and are reported 
because presenting striking exceptions to the general constitution of soils 
in this country. 

20. Prairie soil of the most productive kind in Alabama ; a black clay, 
with very little sand, yet so far from being stiff, that it becomes too light 
by cultivation. This kind of land is stated by the friend to whom I am in- 
debted for the specimens, to " produce corn and oats most luxuriantly— and 
also cotton for two or three years ; but after that time cotton is subject to 
the rust, probably from the then open state of the soil, which by cultivation 
has by that time become as light and as soft as a bank of ashes." One 
hundred grains of the specimen contained eight of carbonate of lime. All 
this prairie land in Alabama lies on a substratum of what is there called 
" rotten lime-stone," (specimens of which contained seventy-two to eighty- 
two per cent, of lime,) and which rises to the surface sometimes, forming 
the "bald prairies," a sample of the soil of which (21) contained fifty-nine 
per cent, of carbonate of lime. This was described as " comparatively 
poor— neither trees nor bushes grow there, and only grass and weeds be- 
fore cultivation— corn does not grow well— small grain better — and cotton 
soon becomes subject to the rust." The excessive proportion of calcareous 
earth is evidently the cause of its barrenness. 

The substratum called lime-stone is soft enough to be cut easily and 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 43 

smoothly with a knife, and some of it is in appearance and texture more 
like the chalk of Europe, than any other earth that I have seen in this 
country. 

22. A specimen of the very rich " cane brake" lands in Marengo county, 
Alabama, contained sixteen per cent, of carbonate of lime. This is a kind 
of prairie, of a wetter nature, from the winter rains not being able to run 
off from the level surface, nor to sink through the tenacious clay soil, and 
the solid stratum of lime-stone below. 

23. A specimen from the very extensive " Choctaw Prairie" in Missis- 
sippi, of celebrated fertility, yielded thirteen per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

Several other specimens of different, but all of very fertile soils from 
southern Alabama, and all lying over the substratum of soft lime-stone, 
were found to be neutral, containing not a particle of lime in the form of 
carbonate. These specimens were as follows — 

24. One from the valley cane land— " very wet through the winter, but 
always dry in summer— and after being ditched is dry enough to be culti- 
vated in cotton, which will grow from eight to twelve feet high." 

25. Another from what is called the best " post-oak land," on which trees 
of that kind grow to the size of from two to four feet in diameter— having 
but little underwood, and no cane growth— "thought to be nearly as rich 
as the best cane land, and will produce 1500 lbs., or more, of seed cotton, 
or fifty bushels of corn to the acre." 

26. Another from what is termed " palmetto land, having on it that plant 
as well as a heavy cover of large trees growing luxuriantly. It is a cold 
and wet soil before being brought into good tilth ; but afterwards is soft 
and easy to till, and produces corn and cotton finely. The cane on it is 
generally small : the soil from four to ten feet deep."* 

One more prairie soil only will be adduced, from many analyses which 
have furnished general results like the foregoing, (20 to 26) ; and this one is 
given because it serves as a fair specimen of a very large class of the 
prairie lands. It was selected by Dr. R. W. Withers, in 1835, and de- 
scribed by him as follows: (Farmers' Register, vol. in., p. 498.) 

Soil of Greene county, Alabama, "from our open or bald prairie, [1. e., 
totally without trees,] which has been cultivated for seven or eight years — 
produces corn very well — nearly fifty bushels to the acre are now stand- 
ing on the ground ; but cotton does not produce so well on it as on poor 
sandy soil. I feel very confident that this specimen is highly calcareous, as 
there are many fragments of shells mixed with the soil, and the rock is not 
two feet from the surface. Of all the specimens hitherto sent, this is the 
one which will give the nearest approach to the general character of our 
open prairie land in this part of the country." — This specimen was found 
to contain 33 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

The foregoing details, respecting lime-stone lands, may perhaps be consi- 
dered an unnecessary digression, in a treatise on the soils of the tide-water 
district. But the analysis of lime-stone soils furnishes the strongest evi- 

* It is proper to mention a circumstance which may have had some effect in remov- 
ing the carbonate of lime from these Alabama soils, besides the more general causes 
which will be traced in the next chapter. With these specimens of soil was sent a 
collection of the small stones and gravel which were stated to be found generally through 
these soils, and particularly in the clay sub-soil beneath. Among these there were se- 
veral fragments of sulphuret of iron. This mineral, when decomposing in the earth in 
contact with carbonate of lime, also decomposes the latter substance, and forms sulphate 
of lime, (gypsum,) instead. It is well worth inquiry whether sulphuret of iron is gene- 
ially found in these soils. It may be known by its great weight, and metallic lustre 
when broken, (which has caused it often to be mistaken for silver ore,) and by giving 
out fumes of burning sulphur when subjected to strong heat under a blow pipe. 



44 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

dence of the remarkable and novel fact of the general absence of calca- 
reous earth — and the information thence derived will be used to sustain 
the following steps of my argument. 

All the examinations of soils in this chapter concur in opposing the ge- 
neral application of the proposition that the deficiency of calcareous earth 
is the cause of the sterility of our soils. And having stated the objection in 
all its force, I shall now proceed to inquire into its causes, and endeavor to 
dispel its apparent opposition to my doctrine. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF ACID AND NEUTRAL SOILS. 

Proposition 2 — continued. 

Sufficient evidence has been adduced to prove that many of our most 
fertile and valuable soils are destitute of calcareous earth. But it does not 
necessarily follow that such has always been their composition ; or that 
they may not now contain lime combined with some other acid than the 
carbonic. That this is really the case, I shall now offer proofs to establish ; 
and not only maintain this position with regard to those valuable soils, but 
shall contend that lime, in some proportion, combined ivith vegetable acid, is 
present in every soil capable of supporting vegetation. 

But while I shall endeavor to maintain these positions, without asking or 
even admitting any exception, let me not be understood as asserting that 
the original ingredient of calcareous earth was always the sole cause of 
the fertility of any particular soil, or that a knowledge of the proportion 
contained, would serve to measure the capacity of the soil for improvement. 
Calcareous soils, not differing materially in qualities or value, often exhibit 
a remarkable difference in their respective proportions of calcareous earth ; 
so that it would seem that a small quantity, aided by some other unknown 
agent, or perhaps by time, may give as much capacity for improvement, 
and ultimately produce as much fertility, as ten times that proportion, under 
other circumstances. 

In all naturally poor soils, producing freely pine and whortleberry in 
their virgin state, and sheep sorrel after cultivation, I suppose to have been 
formed some vegetable acid, which, after taking up whatever small quantity 
of lime might have been present, still remains in excess in the soil, and 
nourishes in the highest degree the plants named above, but is a poison to 
all useful crops; and effectually prevents such soils becoming rich, by 
either natural or artificial applications of putrescent manures. 

In a neutral soil, I suppose calcareous earth to have been sufficiently 
abundant at some former time to produce a high degree of fertility— but 
that it has been decomposed, and the lime taken up, by the gradual forma- 
tion of vegetable acid, until the lime and the acid neutralize and balance 
each other, leaving no considerable excess of either ; and that such are all 
our fertile soils which are not now calcareous. 

These suppositions remain to be proved, in all their parts. 

No opinion has been yet advanced that is less supported by good 
authority, or to which more general opposition may be expected, than that 
which supposes the existence of acid soils. The term sour soil is frequently 
used by farmers, but in so loose a manner as to deserve no consideration. 
It has been thus applied to any cold and ungrateful land, without intending 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 45 

that the term should be literally understood, and perhaps without attaching 
to its use any precise meaning whatever. Dundonald only, of all those 
who have applied chemistry to agriculture, has asserted the existence of 
vegetable acid in soils:" but he has offered no analysis of soils in proof, 
nor any other evidence to establish the fact ; and his opinion has received 
no confirmation, nor even the slightest notice, from later and more able in- 
vestigators of the chemical characters of soils. Kir wan and Davy profess 
to enumerate all the common ingredients of soils; and it is not intimated 
by either that vegetable acid is one of them. Even this tacit denial by 
Davy more strongly opposes the existence of vegetable acid, than it is sup- 
ported by the opinion of Dundonald, or any of those writers on agricul- 
ture who have admitted its existence. For it cannot be supposed that so 
able and profound an investigator would have omitted all reference to an 
ingredient of soils so general, and therefore so important, as is here asserted, 
even if its presence had been ever suspected by him, much less known. 
Grisenthwaite, a late writer on agricultural chemistry, and who has the ad- 
vantage of knowing the discoveries, and comparing the opinions, of all his 
predecessors, expressly denies the possibility of any acid existing in soils. 
His New ' Theory of Agriculture ' contains the following passage : " Chalk 
has been recommended as a substance calculated to correct the sourness 
of land. It would surely have been a wise practice to have previously as- 
certained this existence of acid, and to have determined its nature, in order 
that it might be effectually removed. The fact really is, that no soil was 
ever yet found to contain any notable quantity of acid. The acetic and 
the carbonic are the only two that are likely to be generated by any spon- 
taneous decomposition of animal or vegetable bodies, and neither of them 
have any fixity when exposed to the air." Thus, then, my doctrine is de- 
prived of even the feeble support it might have had from Dundonald's mere 
opinion, if that opinion had not been contradicted by later and better 
authority ; and the only support that I can look for, will be in the facts and 
arguments that I shall be able to adduce. 

I am not prepared to question what Grisenthwaite states as a chemical 
fact, " that no soil was ever yet found to contain any notable quantity of 
acid." No soil examined by me for this purpose gave any evidence of the 
presence of uncombined acid. Still, however, the term acid may be ap- 
plied with propriety to soils in which growing vegetables continually receive 
acid from the decomposition of others, (for which no "fixity" is requisite,) or 
in which acid is present, not free, but combined with some base, by which 
it is readily yielded to promote, or retard, the growth of plants in contact 
with it. It will be sufficient for my purpose to show that certain soils con- 
tain some substance, or possess some quality, which promotes almost ex- 
clusively the growth of acid plants— that this power is strengthened by 
adding known vegetable acids to the soil— and is totally removed by the 
application of calcareous manures, which would necessarily destroy any 
acid, if it were present. Leaving it to chemists to determine the nature 
and properties of this substance, I merely contend for its existence and 
effects ; and the cause of these effects, whatever it may be, for the want of 
a better name, I shall call acidity. 

The proofs now to be offered in support of the existence of acid and 
neutral soils, however weak each may be when considered alone, yet, when 
taken in connexion, will together form a body of evidence not easily to be 
resisted. 

First proof. — Pine and common sorrel have leaves well known to be acid 

* Dundonald's Connexion of Chemistry and Agriculture. 

6 



46 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 

to the taste ; and their growth is favored by the soils which I suppose to 
be acid, to an extent which would be thought remarkable in other plants 
on the richest soils. Except wild locust on the best river land, no growth 
can compare in rapidity with pines on soils naturally poor, and even greatly 
reduced by long cultivation. Pines usually stand so thick, on old exhaust- 
ed fields, that the increase of size in each plant is greatly retarded ; but if 
the whole growth of an acre were estimated, it would probably exceed in 
quantity the different growth of the richest soils, of the same age and on 
an equal space. Every cultivator of corn on poor light soil knows how 
rapidly sorrel* will cover his otherwise naked field, unless kept in check by 
continual tillage— and that to root it out, so as to prevent the like future 
labor, cannot be effected by any mode of cultivation whatever. This weed 
too is considered far more hurtful to growing crops, than any other of equal 
size. Yet neither of these acid plants can thrive on the best lands. Sorrel 
cannot even live on a calcareous soil ; and if a pine is sometimes found 
there, it has nothing of its usual elegant form, but seems as stunted and ill- 
shaped as if it had always suffered for want of nourishment. Innume- 
rable facts, of which these are examples, prove that these acid plants must 
derive from their favorite soil some kind of food peculiarly suited to their 
growth, and quite useless, if not hurtful, to cultivated crops. 

2nd. Dead acid plants are the most effectual in promoting the growth of 
living ones. When pine leaves are applied to a soil, whatever acid they 
contain is of course given to that soil, for such time as circumstances per- 
mit it to retain its form, or peculiar properties. Such an application is often 
made on a large scale, by cutting down the second growth of pines, on 
land once under tillage, and suffering them to lie a year before cleaning 
and cultivating the land. The invariable consequence of this course is a 
growth of sorrel, for one or two years, so abundant and so injurious to the 
crops, as to more than balance any benefit derived by the soil from the 
vegetable matter having been allowed to rot. From the general experience 
of this effect, most persons put pine land under tillage as soon as cut down, 
after carefully burning (to destroy) the whole of the heavy cover of leaves, 
both green and dry. Until within a few years, it was generally supposed 
that the leaves of pine were worthless, if not hurtful, in all applications to 
cultivated land— which opinion doubtless was founded on such facts as 
have been just stated. But if they are used as litter for cattle, and heaped 
to ferment, the injurious quality of pine leaves is destroyed, and they be- 
come a valuable manure. This practice is but of recent origin— but is 
highly approved, and rapidly extending. Still later it has been found that 
when these leaves are applied unrotted, as raked up in wood-land, to calca- 
reous land, they produce only and always beneficial results; and that this 
is the best as well as cheapest mode of their application. 

On one of the washed and barren declivities (or galls) which are so nu- 
merous on all our farms, I had the small gullies packed full of green pine 
bushes, and then covered with the earth drawn from the equally barren 
intervening ridges, so as nearly to smooth the whole surface. The whole 
piece had borne nothing previously except a few scattered tufts of poverty 
grass, and dwarfish sorrel, all of which did not prevent the spot seeming 
quite bare at mid-summer, if viewed at the distance of one hundred yards. 
This operation was performed in February or March. The land was not 

* Sheep sorrel, or Rumex acelosa. The wood sorrel ( Oxalis acetocella) is of a very 
different character. The latter prefers rich and even calcareous soils, and I have 
seen it growing well on places calcareous to excess. It would seem, therefore, that 
wood sorrel forms its acid from the atmosphere, and does not draw it from the soil, as 
I suppose to be the case with common sorrel. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY, 47 

cultivated, nor again observed, until the second summer afterwards. At 
that time, the piece remained as bare as formerly, except along the filled 
gullies, which, throughout the whole of their crooked courses, were covered 
by a thick and uncommonly tall growth of sorrel, remarkably luxuriant for 
any situation, and which, being bounded exactly by the width of the nar- 
row gullies, had the appearance of some vegetable sown thickly in drills, 
and kept clean by tillage. So great an effect of this kind has not been 
produced within my knowledge — though facts of like nature, and leading 
to the same conclusion, are of frequent occurrence. If small pines stand- 
ing thinly over a broom-grass old-field are cut down and left to lie, under 
every top will be found a patch of sorrel, before the leaves have all rotted. 

3rd. The growth of sorrel is not only peculiarly favored by the application 
of vegetables containing acids already formed, but also by such matters 
as will form acid in the course of their decomposition. Farm-yard manure, 
and all other putrescent animal and vegetable substances, form acetic acid 
as their decomposition proceeds.* If heaps of rotting manure are left 
without being spread, in a field but very slightly subject to produce sorrel, 
a few weeks of growing weather will bring out that plant close around 
every heap; and for some time the sorrel will continue to show more bene- 
fit from that rank manuring than any other grass. For several years my win- 
ter-made manure was spread and ploughed in on land not cultivated until the 
next autumn, or the spring after. This practice was founded on the mis- 
taken opinion, that it would prevent much of the usual exposure to evapo- 
ration and waste of the manure. One of the reasons which alone would 
have compelled me to Abandon this absurd practice was, that a crop of 
sorrel always followed, (even on good soils that before barely permitted a 
scanty growth of it to live,) which so injured the next grain crop as greatly 
to lessen the benefit from the manure. Sorrel unnaturally produced by 
such applications does not infest the land longer than until we may suppose 
the acid to have been removed by cultivation and other causes. 

It may be objected, that even if fully admitted, my authorities prove only 
the formation of a single vegetable acid in soil, the acetic— that my facts 
show only the production of a single acid plant, sorrel— and that the acid 
which sorrel contains is not the acetic, but the oxalic, f In reply to such 
objections, it may be said, that from the application of acids to recently 
ploughed land, no acid plant except sorrel is made to grow, because that 
one only can spring up speedily enough to arrest the fleeting nutriment. 
Poverty grass (Aristida, gracilis or A. dichotoma) grows only on the same 
kinds of soil, and generally covers them after they have been a year free 
from a crop, but does not show sooner; and pines require two years before 
their seeds will produce plants. But when pines begin to spread over the 
land, they soon put an end to the growth of all other plants, and are abun- 
dantly supplied with their acid food, from the dropping of their own leaves. 
Thus they may be first supplied with the vegetable acid ready formed in 
the leaves, and afterwards with the acetic acid formed by their subsequent 
slow decomposition. It does not weaken my argument that the product 
of a plant is a vegetable acid different from the one supposed to have nou- 
rished its growth. All vegetable acids (except the prussic) however diffe- 
rent in their properties, are composed of the same three elementary bodies, 
differing only in their proportions]— and consequently are all convertible 
into each other. A little move, or a little less of one or the other of these 

* Agr. Chem. p. 187. (Phil, ed.) 

t Agr. Chem. Lecture 3. 

j Carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Agr. Chem. Lecture 3. p 7^ 



48 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

ingredients, may change the acetic to the oxalic acid, and that to any other. 
We cannot doubt but that such simple changes may be produced by the 
chemical powers of vegetation, when others are effected far more difficult 
for us to comprehend. The most tender and feeble organs, and the mildest 
juices, aided by the power of animal or vegetable life, are able to produce 
decompositions and combinations which the chemist cannot explain, and 
which he would in vain attempt to imitate. 

4th. This ingredient of soils, which nourishes acid plants, also poisons cul- 
tivated crops. Plants have not the power of rejecting noxious fluids, but 
take up by their roots every thing presented in a soluble form.* Thus the 
acid also enters the sap-vessels of cultivated plants, stints their growth, and 
makes it impossible for them to attain that size and perfection which their 
proper food would ensure, if it were presented to them without its poi- 
sonous accompaniment. When the poorest virgin wood-land is cut down, 
it is covered and filled to excess with leaves and other rotted and rotting 
vegetable matters. Can a heavier vegetable manuring be desired ] And 
as this completely rots during cultivation, must it not offer to the growing 
plants as abundant a supply of food as they can require ? Yet the best 
product obtained may be from ten to fifteen bushels of corn, or five or six 
of wheat, soon to come down to half those quantities. If the noxious 
quality which causes such injury is an acid, it is as certain as any chemical 
truth whatever, that it will be neutralized, and its powers destroyed, by 
applying enough of calcareous earth to the soil ; and precisely such effects 
are found whenever that remedy is tried. On land thus relieved of this 
unceasing annoyance, the young plants of corn no longer appear of a 
pale and sickly green, approaching to yellow, but take immediately a deep 
healthy color, by which it may readily be distinguished from any on soil 
left in its former state, before there is any perceptible difference in the size 
of the plants. The crop will produce fifty to one hundred per cent, more, 
the first year, before its supply of food can possibly have been increased ; 
and the soil is soon found not only cleared of sorrel, but absolutely incapa- 
ble of producing it. 1 have anticipated these effects of calcareous manures, 
before furnishing the evidence ; but they will hereafter be established by 
facts beyond contradiction. 

The truth of the existence of either acid or neutral soils depends on the 
existence of the other; and to prove either, will necessarily establish both, 
If acid exists in soils, then whenever it meets with calcareous earth, the two 
substances must combine with and neutralize each other, so far as their 
proportions are properly adjusted. On the other hand, if I can show that 
compounds of lime and vegetable acid are present in most soils, it follows 
inevitably that nature has provided means by which soils can generally 
obtain this acid ; and if the amount formed can balance the lime, the opera- 
tion of the same causes can exceed that quantity, and leave an excess of 
free acid. From these premises will be deduced the following proofs. 

5th. It has been stated (page 36) that the process recommended by chemists 
for finding the calcareous earth in soils was unfit for that purpose, because 
some precipitate was always obtained, even when no calcareous earth or 
carbonate of lime was present. Frequent trials have shown me that this 
precipitate is considerably more abundant from good soils than bad. The 
substance thus obtained from rich soils by solution and precipitation, in 
every case that I have tried, contains some carbonate of lime, although 
the soil from which it was derived had none. The alkaline liquor from 
which the precipitate has been separated, we arc told by Mavy, will, after 

* Agr Chem Lecture 6. page 196 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 49 

boiling, let fall the carbonate of magnesia, if any had been in the soil ; but 
when any notable depositc is thus obtained, it will often be found to con- 
sist more of carbonate of lime, than of magnesia. The following are ex- 
amples of such products : 

One thousand grains of tide-marsh soil, (page 40, No. 4,) acted on by 
muriatic acid in the pneumatic apparatus, gave out no carbonic acid gas, 
and therefore could have contained no carbonate of lime. The precipitate 
obtained from the same weighed sixteen grains ; which being again acted 
on by sulphuric acid, evolved as much gas as showed that three grains had 
become carbonate of lime, in the previous part of the process. 

Two hundred grains of alluvial soil from Saratoga Springs (page 41 No. 
18,) containing no carbonate of lime, yielded a precipitate of twelve grains, 
of which three was carbonate of lime — and a deposite from the alkaline 
solution weighing six grains, four of which was carbonate of lime. 

Seven hundred grains of limestone soil from Bedford, Pennsylvania, 
(part of the specimen marked 14, page 41,) contained about two-thirds of a 
grain of carbonate of lime— and its precipitate of twenty-eight grains, only 
yielded two grains: but the alkaline solution deposited eleven grains of the 
carbonates of lime and magnesia, of which at least five was of the former, 
as there remained seven and a half of solid matter, after the action of sul- 
phuric acid.* 

From this process, there can be no doubt but that the soil contained a 
proportion of some salt of lime, (or lime combined with some kind of acid,) 
which being decomposed by and combined with the muriatic acid, was 
then precipitated, not in its first form, but in that of carbonate of lime— it 
being supplied with carbonic acid from the carbonate of potash used to 
produce the precipitation. The proportions obtained in these cases were 
small ; but it does not follow that the whole quantity of lime contained in 
the soil was found. However, to the extent of this small proportion of 
lime, is proved clearly the presence of enough of some acid (and that not 
the carbonic) to combine with it. Neither could it have been the sulphuric, 
or the phosphoric acid ; for though both the sulphate and phosphate of lime 
are in some soils, yet neither of these salts can be decomposed by muriatic 
acid. 

6th. The strongest objection to the doctrine of neutral soils is, that, if true, 
the salt formed by the combination of the lime and acid must often be pre- 
sent in such large proportions, that it is scarcely credible that its presence 
and nature should not have been discovered by any of the able chemists 
who have analyzed soils. This difficulty I cannot remove, but it may be 
met (or neutralized, to borrow a figure from my subject,) by showing that 
an equal difficulty awaits those who may support the other side of the 
argument. 

The theory of geologists of the formation of soils, from the decomposi- 

* The measurement of the carbonic acid gas evolved was relied on to show the whole 
amount of carbonates present— and sulphuric acid was used to distinguish between 
lime and magnesia, in the deposite from the alkaline solution. If any alumina or 
magnesia had made part of the solid matter exposed to diluted sulphuric acid, the com- 
binations formed would have been soluble salts, which would of course have remained 
dissolved and invisible in the fluid. Lime only, of the four earths, forms with sulphuric 
acid a substance but slightly soluble, and which therefore can be mostly separated in a 
solid form. The whole of this substance (sulphate of lime) cannot be obtained in this 
manner, as a part is always dissolved ; but whatever is obtained, proves that at least 
two-thirds of that quantity of carbonate of lime had been present ; as that quantity of 
lime which will combine vVith enough carbonic acid to make 100 parts (by weight) of 
carbonate of lime, will combine with so much more of sulphuric acid, as to form about 
ISO parts of the sulphate of lime, or gypsum. 



50 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

tion or disintegration of rocks, is received as true by scientific agricul- 
turists. The soils thus supposed to be formed, receive admixtures from 
each other, by means of different operations of nature, and after being 
more or less enriched by the decay of their own vegetable products, make 
the endless variety of existing soils.* But where a soil, lying on and thus 
supposed to have been formed from any particular kind of rock, is so situ- 
ated that it could not have been moved, or received considerable accessions 
from torrents or other agents, then, according to this theory, the rock and 
the soil should be composed of the same materials ; and such soils as the 
specimens, marked 1 1 and 16, (page 41,) would be, like the rock they touch- 
ed, nearly pure calcareous earth, instead of being (as they were in truth) 
destitute, or nearly so, of that ingredient. Such are the doctrines received 
and taught by Davy, or the unavoidable deductions from them. But, with- 
out contending for the full extent of this theory of the formation of soils, 
(because I consider it almost entirely false,) every one must admit that soils 
thus situated must have received, in the lapse of ages, some accessions to 
their bulk, from the effects of frost, rain, sun, and air, on the lime-stone in 
contact with them. All lime-stone soils, properly so called, exhibit certain 
marked and peculiar characters of color, texture, and products, which can 
only be derived from receiving into their composition more or less of the 
rock which lies beneath, or rises above their surface. This mixture will 
not be denied by any one who has observed lime-stone soils, and reasons 
fairly, whether his investigation begins with the causes, or their effects. If 
then all this accession of calcareous earth remains in the soil, why is it that 
none, or almost none, is discovered by accurate chemical analysis ] Or, if 
it be supposed not present, nor yet changed in its chemical character, in 
what possible manner could a ponderous and insoluble earth have made its 
escape from the soil ? To remove this obstacle, without admitting the ope- 
ration of acid in making such soils neutral, will be attended with at least 
as much difficulty, as any arising from that admission being made. 

7th. But we are not left entirely to conjecture that soils were once more 
calcareous than they now are, if chemical tests can be relied on to furnish 
proof. Acid soils that have received large quantities of calcareous earth 
as manure, after some time, will yield very little when analyzed. To a 
soil of this kind, full of vegetable matter, I applied, in 1818 and 1821, 
fossil shells at such a known and heavy rate as would have given to the 
soil (by calculation) at least three per cent, of calcareous earth, for the 
depth of five inches. Only a small portion of the shelly matter was very 
finely divided when applied. Since the application of the greater part of 
this dressing, (only one-fourth having been laid on in 1818,) no more than 
six years had passed before the following examinations were made (at end 
of 1826); and the cultivation of five crops in that time, three of which 
were horse-hoed, must have well mixed the calcareous earth with the soil. ' 
Three careful examinations gave the following results: 

No. 1. — 1000 grains yielded 7\ of coarse calcareous earth, (fragments of 
shells,) 

And less than \ of finely divided. 



* Agr. Chem. p, 131. Also Treatise on Agriculture, (by General Armstrong,) quoted 
in a preceding page (33) of this essay. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 5) 



No. 2. — 1000 grains yielded - r , of coarse, 

2 finely divided. 



7 
No. 3. — 1500 grains yielded 1". of coarse, 

2.1 finely divided. 



m 



The specimens, No. 1 and No. 2, were obtained by taking handfuls of soil 
from several places, (four in one case, and twelve in the other,) mixing them 
well together, and then taking the samples for trial from the two parcels. 
On such land, when not recently ploughed, there will always be an over 
proportion of the pieces of shells on the surface, as the rains have settled 
the fine soil, and left exposed the coarser matters. On this account, in 
making these two selections, the upper half-inch was first thrown aside, and 
the handful dug from below. No. 3 was taken from a spot showing a full 
average thickness of shells, and included the surface. I considered the 
three trials made as fairly as possible, to give a general average. Small as 
is the proportion of finely divided calcareous earth exhibited, it must have 
been increased by rubbing some particles from the coarser fragments, in 
the operation of separating them by a fine sieve. Indeed it may be doubt- 
ed whether any proportion remained very finely divided — or in other words, 
whether it had not been combined with acid, as fast as it was so reduced. 
But without the benefit of this supposition, the finely divided calcareous 
earth in the three specimens averaged only one and one-fourth grains to 
the thousand, which is one twenty-fourth of the quantity laid on ; and the 
total quantity obtained, of coarse and fine, is eight grains in one thousand, 
or about one-fourth of the original proportion. All the balance had changed 
its form, or otherwise disappeared, in the few years that had passed since 
the application. 

Another similar trial of this soil from the same ground was repeated in 
July, 1842, which showed that the finely divided carbonate of lime, then 
remaining, was in quantity so small as to be barely perceptible and ap- 
preciable. The land had then remained undisturbed by tillage for nine 
months ; and some scattered fragments of shells were exposed to view on 
the surface generally. For the obvious reasons stated in the preceding 
paragraph, there will always appear an over-proportion of such fragments, 
upon the surface of land not recently ploughed ; for this reason, as on two 
of the three former trials, the upper half-inch of surface soil was thrown 
aside, and the sample for examination taken immediately below. Of this, 
2400 grains yielded two grains only of small fragments of shells, and 
less than one grain of finely divided carbonate of lime ; whereas seven- 
ty-two grains had been the original quantity furnished to the soil. This 
result, with those of the earlier trials, agree precisely with what would be 
expected from the action of acid in soil, and cannot be satisfactorily ex- 
plained by any other doctrine.* 

* Even of this very small amount of fragments of shells found, (2 grains,) more than 
half was of the very hard gray shells (oyster and scallop,) which seem almost 
indestructible in soil. They must contain some chemical ingredient which enables them 
to withstand the acid or other corroding action of soil, to which all the white fossil 
shells, whether hard or soft, so readily yield in the course of time. I recently observed 
a most striking proof of this well known general fact of the long durability of these 
gray shells, and consequently their comparative worthlessness as a manure. On like soil 
to the subject of the above trials, and near the same spot, I recently (1842) found a small 



52 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 

The very small proportions of finely divided calcareous earth compared 
to the coarse, in some shelly soils, furnish still stronger evidence of this 
kind. Of the York river soil, (described page 38 No. 5,) 
1260 grains, yielded of coarse calcareous parts, - - 1G8 grains. 
And of finely divided, 8 



1044 of the rich Nansemond soil, (No. C,) - - - 544 coarse. 

18 fine. 



As many of the shells and their fragments in these soils are in a mould- 
ering state, it is incredible that the whole quantity of finely divided particles 
derived from them should have amounted to no more than these small pro- 
portions. Independent of the action of natural causes, the plough alone, in 
a few years, must have pulverized at least as much of the shells as was 
found. 

8. In other cases, where the operations of nature have been applying 
calcareous earth for ages, none now remains in the soil ; and the proof 
thence derived is more striking than any obtained from a'rtificial applications 
of only a few years' standing. Valleys, subject to be frequently flooded 
and saturated by the water of lime-stone streams, must necessarily retain a 
new supply of calcareous earth from every such soaking and drying. 
Lime-stone water contains the super-carbonate of lime, which is soluble ; 
but this loses its excess of carbonic acid when left dry by evaporation, and 
becomes the carbonate of lime, which not being soluble, is in no danger of 
being removed by subsequent floods. Thus, accessions are slowly but 
continually made, through many centuries. Yet such soils are found con- 
taining no calcareous earth — of which a remarkable example is presented 
in the soil of the cultivated part of the Sweet Spring Valley, (No. 8, 
page 40.) 

The excess of carbonic acid, which unites with lime and renders the com- 
pound soluble in water, is lost by exposure of the calcareous water to the 
air, as well as by evaporation to dryness. [Accum's Chemistry — Lime.] 
The masses of soft calcareous rock which are deposited in the rapids of 
lime-stone streams are examples of the loss of carbonic acid from exposure 
to the air ; and the stalactites in caves, the deposite of the slow-dropping 
water holding in solution the super-carbonate of lime, are examples of the 
same effect produced by evaporation. A similar deposite of insoluble car- 
bonate of lime, from both these causes, is necessarily made on all land sub- 
ject to be flooded by lime- stone waters. 

9. All wood ashes contain salts of lime, (and most kinds in large propor- 
tions,) which could have been derived from no other source than the soils 
on which the trees grew. The lime thus obtained is principally combined' 
with carbonic acid, and partly with the phosphoric, forming phosphate of 
lime. The table of Saussure's numerous analyses of the ashes of nume- 
rous plants,* is sufficient to show that these products are general, if not 
universal. The following examples of some of my own few examinations 
prove that ashes yield calcareous earth in proportions suitable to their kind, 
although the wood grew on soils destitute of that ingredient — as was as- 
certained with regard to each of these soils. 

and thin but well-marked oyster-shell, (Ostrea Virginiana,) apparently as perfect and 
as well preserved as when it was dug up, and which was a good characteristic specimen 
of the kind, and as such, has been placed in my cabinet. This shell was part of 
the dressing spread upon the field for the crop of 1821, and has been since exposed to 
all the vicissitudes of tillage and of weather for nearly twenty-two years. 
* Quoted in Agr. Chem. Lecture 3. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



53 







CAKIidN \ IK 


PHOSPHATE 


100 GRAINS OF ASHES FROM 


WHAT SOIL TAKEN FROM. 


OF 


OF 






LIME. 


LIME. 


[Whortleberry bushes, the 








entire plants, except the 








leaves, 


Acid silicious loam, 


4 grains. 


1 grains. 


Equal parts of the bark, 








heart, and sap-wood of 








an old locust, 


The same. 


51 " 


18 " 


Young locust bushes entire 


lich neutral clay loam, 


40 " 


30 " 


Young pine bushes, 


\cid silicious loam, 


9 " 


6 " 


Body of a young pine tree, | Acid clay soil, 


1 1 " 


18 " 



The potash was first carefully taken out of all these samples. The re- 
maining solid matter was silicious sand and charcoal ; the proportion of 
the latter varying according to the degree of heat used in burning the wood, 
which was not permitted to be very strong, for fear of converting the calca- 
reous earth into quick-lime. 

It must be evident and unquestionable that all the carbonate of lime 
yielded by the ashes had been necessarily furnished in some form by the 
soil on which the plants grew ; and when the soil itself contained no carbo- 
nate, as in all these cases, some other compound of lime must have been pre- 
sent, to enable us to account for these certain and invariable results. The 
presence of a combination of lime with some vegetable acid, and none other* 
would serve to produce such effects. According to established chemical 
laws, if any such combination had been taken up into the sap-vessels of 
the tree, it would be decomposed by the heat necessary to convert the wood 
to ashes ; the acid would be reduced to its elementary principles, and the 
lime would immediately unite with the carbonic acid, (which is produced 
abundantly by the process of combustion,) and thus present a product of 
carbonate of lime newly formed from the materials of the other substances 
decomposed.* 

On the foregoing facts and deductions, I am content to rest the truth of 
the existence of acid and neutral soils. 

I have chosen to leave all the preceding part of this chapter (with the ex- 
ception of a few merely verbal corrections and alterations) precisely as it 
appeared in the first edition of this essay, (January 1832.)f But since that 
time I have first heard of a discovery, and of consequent investigations by 
men of science, which seem to furnish direct proof of what I have been 
contending for, viz. : the existence of a vegetable acid substance in soils and 
manures, generally diffused, and often in large proportions, and yet which 
had not been known or suspected by chemists previously. The first intima- 
tion of this discovery which reached me was in the ' Alphabet of Scientific 
Gardening,' by Professor Rennie, published in London in 1833, from which 
the part relative to this subject will be quoted below. Since, I have 
seen the French version of the late work of Berzelius, in which his 
views of humic acid (or, as he names it, the geic acid,) are given more at 



* The reasoning on the presence ot the carbonate of lime found in ashes, from acid 
soils, does not apply to the phosphate of lime which is also always present. The latter 
salt is not decomposed by any known degree of heat, [Art. Chemistry, in Edia. EncyA 
and therefore might possibly have remained unchanged, in passing from the soil to the 
tree, and thence to the ashes. 

t The general position and views taken as to acid and neutral soils are also, in sub- 
stance and purport, just as thev appeared in my first publication on this subject in 1821 

7 



54 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



length, and from which an extract will be translated and given in the ap- 
pendix. The facts respecting humic acid, as concisely stated in the follow- 
ing quotation from Professor Rennie, furnish strong confirmation of some 
of the opinions which I have endeavored to maintain. It will however be 
left, without farther comment, for the reader to observe the accordance, and 
to make the application. 

" Humic acid and humin. — In most chemical books the terms itlmic acid 
and ulmin are used, from ulmus, elm ; but, as its substance occurs in most, 
if not all plants, the name is bad. I prefer Sprengel's terms, from humus, 
soil. 

" This important substance was first discovered by Klaproth, in a sort of 
gum from an elm ; but it has since been found by Berzelius in all barks ; by 
M. Braconnot in saw-dust, starch, and sugar ; and, what is still more in- 
teresting for our present purpose, it has been found by Sprengel and M. 
Polydore Boullay to constitute a leading principle in soils and manures. 
Humin appears to be formed of carbon and hydrogen, and the humic acid 
of humin and oxygen. Pure humin is of a deep blackish brown, without 
taste or smell, and water dissolves it with great difficulty and in small quan- 
tities ; consequently it cannot, when pure, be available as food for plants. 

" Humic acid however, which, I may remark, is not sour to the taste, readily 
combines with many of the substances found in soils and manures, and not 
only renders them, but itself also, easy to be dissolved in water, which in 
their separate state could not take place. In this way humic acid will com- 
Irine toith lime, potass, and ammonia, in the form of humates, and the small- 
est portion of these ivill render it soluble in water and Jit to be taken up by 
the spongelets of the root fibres. 

" It appears to. have been from ignorance of the important action of the 
'humic acid in thus helping to dissolve earthy matters, that the older writers 
were so puzzled to discover how lime and potass got into plants ; and it 
seems also to be this, chiefly, which is so vaguely treated of in the older 
books, under the names of extractive, vegetable extract, mucilaginous mat- 
ter, and the like. Saussure, for instance, filled a vessel with turf, and mois- 
tened it thoroughly with pure water, when by putting ten thousand parts 
of it by weight under a heavy press, and filtering and evaporating the fluid, 
he obtained twenty-six parts of what he termed extract; from ten thou- 
sand parts of well dunged and rich kitchen garden mould, he obtained ten 
parts of extract ; and from ten thousand parts of good corn field mould, 
he obtained four parts of extract. 

"M. Polydore Boullay found that the liquid manure, drained from dung- 
hills, contains a large proportion of humic acid, which accounts for its fer- 
tilizing properties so well known in China and on the continent ; and he 
found it also in peat earth, and in varying proportions in all sorts of turf. 
It appears probable, from Gay-Lussac having found a similar acid, (techni- 
cally azumic acid,) on decomposing the prussic acid, (technically hydro- 
cyanic acid,) that the humic acid may be found in animal blood, and if so, 
it will account for its utility as a manure for vines, &c. Dobereiner found 
the gallic acid convertible into the humic." 

When the last edition of this essay was published, (in 1835,) the above 
annunciation had but just before been made, showing that there was indeed 
high scientific authority for the very general existence of a vegetable acid 
in soils. And since that time, the fact has been admitted by almost all 
scientific writers, and has been treated of at length in sundry chemical works 
and reports of geological surveys in this country. The doctrine of the 
existence of an acid of soil, of vegetable origin, which before had scarcely any 
other authority for its support than mine, humble and obscure as that was, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY 55 

is now of universal acceptation. Still, notwithstanding all that has been 
written on the subject, very little light has been thrown on it by the chemists 
who have treated of it. Being myself too little informed to be able to pro- 
perly digest these different speculations and to balance authorities, and to 
separate the true and valuable from the erroneous or worthless of what 
has been lately published, I deem it best still to rely on my own previously 
published views and proofs only, as presented in the foregoing pages. 
Therefore, leaving it to chemists to settle their present differences of opi- 
nion in regard to the qualities, and even identity, as well as name of the 
acid of soil, and to clear away the existing confusion and obscurity of their 
views, I will, for the present, adopt nothing on their authority in this re- 
spect. Still, I earnestly hope that their subsequent investigations may be 
successful in eliciting and determining what is true of this acid— and also in 
applying the truths ascertained to advance the knowledge of the composi- 
tion and improvement of soils. For the same reason, 1 shall also decline 
adopting any of the various terms which have been successively applied by 
different, and even the same chemists, to designate the odd of soil; as 
humic, geic, crenic and apocrenic acid, &c. 

But without the aid of this recent discovery of the humic or geic acid, 
if the foregoing examinations of soils, and the arguments which follow, re- 
main unquestioned, these two remarkable and important facts may be con- 
sidered as thereby established beyond dispute or doubt : 

1st, That calcareous earth, or carbonate of lime, is in general as entirely 
deficient in the soils of Virginia, as that ingredient had heretofore been sup- 
posed, by agricultural writers, to be common in all soils ; and, 

2d, That, notwithstanding this total absence of the carbonate of lime, 
that lime in some other form of combination, and in greater or less quantity, 
is an ingredient of every soil capable of producing vegetation. 

Nor do these facts come in conflict with each other ; nor cither of them 
with the position which has been contended for, that calcareous matter in 
proper proportions is necessary to cause fertility in soils. Should some 
other person, who may be aided by sufficient scientific light, undertake the 
investigation, he may supply all that is wanting for the direct proof of this 
theory of the cause of fertility, and perhaps show that the value of a soil 
(under equal circumstances) is in proportion to the quantity of the vegetable 
salt of lime present in the soil. The direct and positive proof of this doctrine, 
I confidently anticipate will hereafter be obtained from more full examina- 
tions of the humic acid, and its compounds in various soils, and from cor- 
rect and minute reports of the quantities and kinds of those ingredients, 
in connexion with the degree of the natural fertility of each soil. As yet, 
however interesting the recent discovery of humic acid may be to chemists, 
it does not seem that they have suspected it to have any thing like the 
important bearing on the fertilization of soil which I had attributed to the 
supposed acid principle or ingredient of soils. Berzelius seems scarcely 
to have bestowed a thought on this most important application of his in- 
vestigation of the properties of geine and geic acid. 

Supposing the doctrine to be sufficiently established by my own proofs 
offered above, it may be useful to trace the formation and increase of acidity 
in different soils, according to the views which have been presented, and 
to display the promise which that quality holds out for improving those 
soils which it has heretofore rendered barren and worthless. 

Every neutral soil at some former time must have contained calcareous 
earth in sufficient quantity to produce the uniform effect of that ingredient of 
storing up and fixing fertility. The decomposition of the successive growths 
of plants, left to rot on the rich soil, continually formed vegetable acid, which, 



56 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



as fast as formed, united with the lime in the soil. At last these two 
principles balanced each other, and the soil was no longer calcareous, but 
neutral. Instead of its former ingredient, carbonate of lime, it was 
now supplied with a vegetable salt of lime. This change of soil does 
not affect the natural growth, which remains the same, and thrives as well 
as when the soil was calcareous ; and when brought into cultivation, the 
soil is equally productive under all crops suited to calcareous soils. If the 
supplies of vegetable matter continue, the soil may even become acid in 
some measure, as may be evidenced by the growth of sorrel — but without 
losing any of its fertility before acquired. The degree of acidity in any 
one soil frequently varies ; it is increased by the growth of such plants as 
delight to feed on it, and by the decomposition of all vegetable matters. 
Hence the longer a poor field remains at rest, and not grazed, the more 
acid it becomes ; and this evil keeping pace with the benefits derived, is the 
cause why so little improvement, or increased product, is obtained from 
putting acid soils under that mild treatment. Cultivation not only prevents 
new supplies, but also diminishes the acidity already present in excess, by 
exposing it to the atmosphere ; and therefore the more a soil is exhausted, 
the more will its acidity be lessened. 

We have seen from the proof furnished by the analysis of wood ashes, 
that even poor acid soils contain a little salt of lime, and therefore must 
have been slightly calcareous at some former time. But such small pro- 
portions of calcareous earth were soon equalled, and then exceeded, by the 
formation of vegetable acid, before much productiveness was caused. The 
soil being thus changed, the plants suitable to calcareous soils died off, and 
gave place to others which produce, as well as feed and thrive on, acidity. 
Still, however, even these plants furnish abundant supplies of vegetable 
matter, sufficient to enrich the land in the highest degree ; but the antiseptic 
power of the acid prevents the leaves from rotting for years, and even then 
the soil has no power to profit by their products. Though continually 
wasted, the vegetable matter is continually again forming, and always pre- 
sent in abundance ; but must remain almost useless to the soil, until the 
accompanying acidity shall be destroyed. 

It may well be doubted whether any soil destitute of lime in every form 
would not necessarily be a perfect barren, incapable of producing a spire of 
grass. No soil thus destitute is known, as the plants of all soils show in 
their ashes the presence of some lime. But it is probable that our sub-soils, 
which, when left naked by the washing away of the soil, are so generally 
and totally barren, are made so by their being entirely destitute of lime in 
any form. There is a natural process regularly and at all times working to 
deprive the sub-soil of all lime, unless the soil is abundantly supplied. 
What constitutes soil, and makes the strong and plain mark of separation 
and distinction between the more or less fertile soil and the absolutely sterile 
sub-soil beneath ! The most obvious cause for this difference which might 
be stated, is the dropping of the dead vegetable matter on the surface ; but 
this is not sufficient alone to produce the effects, though it may be so when 
aided by another cause of more power. When the most barren surface earth 
was formed or deposited by any of the natural agents to which such effects 
are attributed by geologists, it seems reasonable to suppose that the surface 
was no richer than any lower part of the whole upper stratum so depo- 
sited. If, then, a very minute proportion of lime had been equally dis- 
tributed through the body of poor earth to any depth that the roots of 
trees could penetrate, it would follow that the roots would, in the course 
of time, take up all the lime, as all of it would be wanting for the 
support of the trees ; and their death and decay would afterwards leave 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -THEORY. 



57 



all this former ingredient of the soil in general, on the surface. This 
process must have the effect, in the course of time, of fixing on and near 
the surface the whole of a scanty supply of lime, and of leaving the sub-soil 
without any. But if there is within the reach of the roots more lime than 
any one crop or growth of plants needs, then the superfluous lime will be 
permitted to remain in the sub-soil, which sub-soil will then be improvable 
by vegetable substances, and readily convertible to productive soil. The 
manner in which lime thus operates will be explained in the next chapter. 
Nearly all the wood-land now remaining in lower Virginia, and also much 
of the land which has long been arable, is rendered unproductive by 
acidity, and successive generations have toiled on such land, almost with- 
out remuneration, and without suspecting that their worst virgin land was 
then richer than their manured lots appear to be. The cultivator 
of such soil, who knows not its peculiar disease, has no other prospect 
than a gradual decrease of his always scanty crops. But if the evil is 
once understood, and the means of its removal is within his reach, he 
has reason to rejoice that his soil was so constituted as to be preserved 
from the effects of the improvidence of his forefathers, who would have 
worn out any land not almost indestructible. The presence of acid, by 
restraining the productive powers of the soil, has in a great measure 
saved it from exhaustion ; and after a course of cropping which would 
have utterly ruined soils much better constituted, the powers of our 
acid land remain not greatly impaired, though dormant, and ready to be 
called into action by merely being relieved of its acid quality. A few crops 
will reduce a new acid field to so low a rate of product, that it scarcely 
will pay for its cultivation ; but no great change is afterwards caused, by 
continuing scourging tillage and grazing, for fifty years longer. Thus our 
acid soils have two remarkable and opposite qualities, both proceeding from 
the same cause : they can neither be enriched by manure, nor impoverished by 
cultivation, to any great extent. Qualities so remarkable deserve all our 
powers of investigation ; yet their very frequency seems to have caused 
them to be overlooked ; and our writers on agriculture have continued to 
urge those who seek improvement to apply precepts drawn from English 
authors, to soils which are totally different from all those for which their 
instructions were intended. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MODE OP OPERATION BY WHICH CALCAREOUS EARTH INCREASES THE FERTILI- 
TY AND PRODUCTIVENESS OP SOILS. 

Proposition 3. The fertilizing effects of calcareous earth are chiefly pro- 
duced by its poioer of neutralizing acids, and of combining putrescent ma- 
nures with soils, between which there would otherwise be but little, if any, 
chemical attraction. 

Proposition 4. Poor and acid soils cannot be improved durably, or profitably, 
by putrescent manures, without previously making them calcareous, and 
thereby correcting the defect in their constitution. 

It has already been made evident that the presence of calcareous earth 
in a natural soil causes great and durable fertility. But it still remains to 
be determined, to what properties of this earth its peculiar fertilizing effects 
are to be attributed. 



5g CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

Chemistry has taught that silicious earth, in any state of division, attracts 
but slightly, if at all, any of the parts of putrescent animal and vegetable 
matters.* But even if any slight attraction really exists when this earth is 
minutely divided for experiment in the laboratory of the chemist, it cannot 
be exerted by silicious sand in the usual form in which nature gives it to 
soils ; that is, in particles comparatively coarse, loose, and open, and yet 
each particle impenetrable to any liquid, or gaseous fluid, that might be 
passing through the vacancies. Hence, silicious earth can have no power, 
chemical or mechanical, either to attract enriching manures, or to preserve 
them when actually placed in contact and intermixed with them ; and soils 
in which the qualities of this earth greatly predominate, must give out freely 
all enriching matters which they may have received, not only to a growing 
crop, but to the sun, air, and water, so as soon to lose the whole. No 
portion of putrescent matter can remain longer than the completion of its 
decomposition ; and if not arrested during this process, by the roots of 
living plants, all will escape in the form of gas (the latest products of 
decomposition,) into the air, without leaving a trace of lasting improve- 
ment. With a knowledge of these properties, we need not resort to the 
common opinion that manure sinks through sandy soils, to account for its 
rapid and total disappearance.! 

Aluminous earth, by its closeness, mechanically excludes those agents of 
decomposition, heat, air and moisture, which sand so freely admits ; and 
therefore clay soils, in which this earth predominates, give out manure much 
more slowly than sand, whether for waste or for use. The practical effect 
of this is universally understood — that clay soils retain manure much longer 
than sand, but require much heavier applications to show as much effect 
early, or at once. But as this means of retaining manure is altogether 
mechanical, it serves only to delay both its use and its waste. Aluminous 
earth also exerts some chemical power in attracting and combining with 
putrescent manures, but too weakly to enable a clay soil to become rich by 
natural means. For though clays are able to exert more force than sand 
in holding manures, their closeness also acts to deny admittance beneath 

* Davy's Agr. Chem. page 129. 

t Except the very small proportions of earthy, saline and metallic matters that may 
he in animal and vegetable manures, the whole balance of their bulk (and the whole of 
whatever can feed plants,) is composed of different elements which are known only in 
the forms of gases — into which manures must be finally resolved, after going through all 
the various stages of fermentation and decomposition. So far from sinking in the earth, 
these final results could not be possibly confined there, but must escape into the atmo- 
sphere as soon as they take a gaseous form, unless immediately taken up by the organs 
of growing plants. It is probable that but a small portion of any dressing of manure 
remains long enough in the soil to make this final change ; and that nearly all of it is , 
used by growing plants, during previous changes, or carried off by air and water. During 
the progress of the many changes caused by fermentation and decomposition, every 
soluble product may certainly sink as low as the rains penetrate ; but it cannot descend 
lower than the water, and that, together with the soluble manure, will be again drawn 
up by the roots of plants. One exception, however, seems probable. Should the soil 
need draining, to take off water passing beneath the surface, the soluble manure may be 
carried off by those springs ; and this supposed result receives strong confirmation from 
the complete loss of fertility which is often observed in spots over sub-soil that is 
oozy in wet seasons, but which have been kept under tillage, without being drained. 
We are as yet but little informed as to the particular changes made, and the various 
new substances successively formed, and then decomposed, during the whole duration 
of putrescent manures in the soil — and no field for discovery would better reward the 
investigations of the agricultural chemist. For want of this knowledge we proceed at 
random in using manures, instead of being enabled to conform to any rule founded on 
scientific principles ; nor can we hope, without such knowledge, so to manage manures 
with regard to their fermentation, the time and manner of application, mixing with 
other substances, 8tc, as to enable the crops to seize every enriching result as soon as it. 
is produced, and to postpone as long as possible the final results of decomposition — which 
ought to be the ends sought in every application of putrescent manure. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 59 

the surface to the enriching matters furnished by the growth and decay of 
plants. And therefore, before being brought into cultivation, a poor clay 
soil would derive scarcely any benefit from its small power of combining 
chemically with putrescent matters. If then it is considered how small is 
the power of both silicious and aluminous earths to receive and retain pu- 
trescent manures, it will cease to cause surprise that such soils cannot be 
thus enriched, with profit, if at all. It would indeed be strange and un- 
accountable, if earths and soils thus constituted could be enriched by pu- 
trescent manures alone. 

Davy states that both aluminous and calcareous earth will combine with 
any vegetable extract, so as to render it less soluble, (and consequently not 
subject to the waste that would otherwise take place,) and hence " that the 
soils which contain most alumina and carbonate of lime, are those which 
act with the greatest chemical energy in preserving manures." Here is 
high authority for calcareous earth possessing the power which my argu- 
ment demands, but not in so great a degree as I think it deserves. Davy 
apparently places both earths in this respect on the same footing, and allows 
to aluminous soils retentive powers equal to the calcareous. But though 
he gives evidence (from chemical experiments) of this power in both earths, 
he does not seem to have investigated the difference of their forces. Nor 
could he deem it very important, holding the opinion which he elsewhere 
expresses, that calcareous earth acts " merely by forming a useful earthy 
ingredient in the soil," and consequently attributing to it no remarkable 
chemical effects as a manure. I shall offer some reasons for believing that 
the powers of attracting and retaining manure, possessed by these two 
earths, differ greatly in their degrees of force. 

Our aluminous and calcareous soils, through the whole of their virgin 
state, have had equal means of receiving vegetable matter ; and if their 
powers for retaining it were nearly equal, so would be their acquired fer- 
tility. Instead of this, while the calcareous soils have been raised to the 
highest condition, many of the tracts of clay soil remain the poorest and 
most worthless. It is true that the one labored under acidity, from which 
the other was free. But if we suppose nine-tenths of the vegetable matter 
to have been rendered useless by that poisonous quality, the remaining 
tenth, applied for so long a time, would have made fertile any soil that had 
the power to retain the enriching matter. 

Many kinds of shells are partly composed of gelatinous animal matter, 
which, I suppose, must be chemically combined with the calcareous earth, 
and by that means only is preserved from the putrefaction and waste that 
would otherwise certainly and speedily take place. Indeed, the large pro- 
portion of animal matter which thus helps to constitute shells, instead of 
making them more perishable, serves to increase their firmness and solidity. 
When long exposure, as in fossil shells, has destroyed all animal matter, 
the texture of the calcareous substance is greatly weakened. A simple 
experiment will serve to separate, and make manifest to the eye, the animal 
matter which is thus combined with and preserved by the calcareous earth. 
If a fresh-water muscle-shell is kept for some days immersed in a weak 
mixture of muriatic acid and water, all the calcareous part will be gra- 
dually dissolved, leaving the animal matter so entire, as to appear still to 
be a whole shell — but which, when lifted from the fluid which supports it, 
will prove to be entirely a flaccid, gelatinous, and putrescent substance, 
without a particle of calcareous matter being left. Yet this substance, 
which is so highly putrescent when alone, would have been preserved in 
combination with calcareous matter, in the shell, for many years, if exposed 
to the usual changes of air and moisture ; and if secured from such 
changes, would be almost imperishable. 



60 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

Calcareous earth has power to preserve those animal matters which are 
most liable to waste, and which give to the sense of smell full evidence 
when they are escaping. Of this, a striking example is furnished by an 
experiment which was made with care and attention. The carcass of a 
cow, that was killed by accident in May, was laid on the surface of the 
earth, and covered with about seventy bushels of finely divided fossil shells 
and earth, (mostly silicious,) their proportions being as thirty-six of calca- 
reous, to sixty-four of silicious earth. After the rains had settled the heap, 
it was only six inches thick over the highest part of the carcass. The pro- 
cess of putrefaction was so slow, that several weeks passed before it was 
over ; nor was it ever so violent as to throw off any effluvia that the calca- 
reous earth did not intercept in its escape, so that no offensive smell was 
ever perceived. In October, the whole heap was carried out and applied 
to one-sixth of an acre of wheat — and the effect produced far exceeded 
that of the calcareous manure alone, which was applied at the same rate 
on the surrounding land. No such power as this experiment indicated (and 
which I have since repeated in various modes, and always with like results) 
will be obtained, or expected from clay. 

Q,uick-lime is used to prevent the escape of offensive effluvia from animal 
matter ; but its operation is entirely different from that of calcareous earth. 
The former effects its object by " eating" or decomposing the animal sub- 
stance, (and nearly destroying it as manure,) before putrefaction begins. 
The operation of calcareous earth is to moderate and retard, but not to 
prevent putrefaction ; not to destroy the animal matter, but to preserve it 
effectually, by forming new combinations with the products of putrefaction. 
This important operation will be treated of more fully in a subsequent 
chapter. 

- The power of calcareous earth to combine with and retain putrescent 
manure, implies the power of fixing them in any soil to which both are ap- 
plied. The same power will be equally exerted if the putrescent manure 
is applied to a soil which had previously been made calcareous, whether by 
nature, or by art. When a chemical combination is formed between the 
two kinds of manure, the one is necessarily as much fixed in the soil as the 
other. Neither air, sun or rain, can then waste the putrescent manure, be- 
cause neither can take it from the calcareous earth, with which it is chemi- 
cally combined. Nothing can effect the separation of the parts of this 
compound manure, except the attractive power of growing plants — which, 
as all experience shows, will draw their food from this combination as fast 
as they require it, and as easily as from sand. The means then by which 
calcareous earth acts as an improving manure are, completely preserving 
putrescent manures from waste, and yielding them freely for use. These , 
particular benefits, however great they may be, cannot be seen very quickly 
after a soil is made calcareous, but will increase with time, and, with the 
means for obtaining vegetable matters, until their accumulation is equal to 
the soil's power of retention. The kind, or the source, of enriching ma- 
nure, does not alter the process described. The natural growth of the soil, 
left to die and rot, or other putrescent manures collected and applied, would 
alike be seized by the calcareous earth, and fixed in the soil. 

This, the most important and valuable operation of calcareous earth, 
then gives nothing to the soil ; but only secures other manures, and gives 
them wholly to the soil. In this respect, the action of calcareous earth in 
fixing manures in soils, is precisely like that of mordants in " setting" or 
fixing colors on cloth. When alum, for example, is used by the dyer for 
this purpose, it adds not the slightest tinge of itself— but it holds to the 
cloth, and also to the otherwise fleeting dye, and thus fixes them per- 



CALCAREOUS MA.\URF.S— THEORY. 



61 



manently together. Without the mordant, the color might have been 
equally vivid, but would be lost by the first wettin; >f the cloth. 

Thus, reasoning a priori, from that chemical power possessed by calca- 
reous earth which is wanting to both sandy and clayey earths, would 
lead to the conclusion that calcareous earth serves to combine putrescent 
matters with the soil in general; and the known results of fertility being 
therein so fixed, might serve for the like proof, even without the other course 
of reasoning. There is still another proof of this combination being formed, 
which is obtained by a chemical process, but which is so simple that no 
chemical science is requisite to make the trial. 

If a specimen of any naturally poor soil, after being dried and reduced 
to powder, be agitated in a vessel of water, (as a common drinking glass,) 
and then allowed to stand still, the coarser silicious sand will subskle first, the 
finer sand next, and last the clay. In this manner, and by pouring off the 
lighter parts, before their subsidence, it is very easy to separate with 
sufficient accuracy the sand from the clay. But if a specimen of a good 
rich neutral soil be tried in that manner, it will be found that the fine 
sand and the clay and putrescent matter hold together so closely that they 
cannot be separated by mere agitation in water. Then take another 
sample of the same soil, and pour to it a small quantity of diluted muriatic 
acid ; and though no effervescence is produced, (the lime not being in the 
form of carbonate,) the acid will take away the lime, or destroy its combi- 
nation with the other earths, so that the sand and the clay may then be 
separated by agitation in water, as perfectly and easily as in the case of 
the poorest soils. This difference between good and bad soils, (whether 
light or stiff,) or those naturally rich and those naturally poor, cannot 
escape the observation of the young experimenter ; and the cause can be 
no other than what I have supposed. This then serves as the third mode 
of proof of the important position, that calcareous earth (or lime in some 
other form) not only combines with vegetable and animal matters, but also 
serves (as a connecting link) to combine these matters with the sand and 
clay of the soil. 

The next most valuable property of calcareous manures for the improve- 
ment of soil is their power of neutralizing acids, which has already been 
incidentally brought forward in the preceding chapter. According to the 
views already presented, our poorest cultivated soils contain more vegetable 
matter than they can beneficially use; and when first cleared, they have it in 
great excess. So antiseptic is the acid quality of poor wood-land, that be- 
fore the crop of leaves of one year can entirely rot, two or three others 
will have fallen ; and there are always enough, at any one time, to greatly 
enrich the soil, if the leaves could be rotted and fixed in it at once. 

This alleged antiseptic effect of vegetable acid in our soils receives strong 
support from the facts established with regard to peat soils, in which vege- 
table acids have been discovered by chemical analysis ; and though the 
peat or moss soils of Britain differ entirely from any soils in eastern Vir- 
ginia, (except that of the great Dismal Swamp, almost the only peat bog 
known,) still some facts relating to the former class may throw light on the 
properties of our own soils, different as they may be. Not only does vege- 
table matter remain without putrefaction in peat soils and bogs, and serve t< i 
increase their depth by regular accretions from the successive annual growths, 
but even the bodies of beasts and men have been found unchanged under 
peat, many years after they had been covered.* It is well known that the 
leaves of trees rot very quickly on the rich lime-stone soils of the western 

* See Alton's Essay on Moss Eartb, republished in Farmers' Register, vol. v., p. 462. 



Q2 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 

states, while the successive crops of several years' growth, in the different 
stages of their slow decomposition, may be always found on the acid wood- 
land of lower Virginia. 

The presence of acid in soils, by preventing or retarding putrefaction, 
keeps the vegetable matter inert, and even hurtful on cultivated land ; and 
the crops are still further injured by taking up this poisonous acid with 
their nutriment. A sufficient quantity of calcareous earth, mixed with such 
a soil, will immediately neutralize the acid, and destroy its powers ; and the 
soil, released from its baneful influence, will be rendered capable, for the 
first time, of using the fertility which it really possessed. The benefit 
thus produced is almost immediate ; but though the soil will show a new 
vigor in its earliest vegetation, and may even double its first crop, yet no 
part of that increased product is due to the direct operation of the calca- 
reous manure, but merely to the removal of acidity. The calcareous earth, 
in such a case, has not made the soil richer in the slightest degree, but has 
merely permitted it to bring into use the fertility it had before, and which 
was concealed by the acid character of the soil. It will be a dangerous 
error for the farmer to suppose that calcareous earth can enrich soil by 
direct means. It destroys the worst foe of productiveness, and uses to the 
greatest advantage the fertilizing powers of other manures ; but of itself it 
gives no fertility to soils, nor does it furnish the least food to growing 
plants.* 

These two kinds of action are by far the most powerful of the means 
possessed by calcareous earth for fertilizing soils. It has another however 
of great importance — or rather two others, which may be best described 
together as the poiver of altering the texture and absorbency of soils. 

At first it may seem impossible that the same manure can produce 
such opposite effects on soils as to lessen the faults of being either too 
sandy or too clayey — and the evils occasioned by both the want and the 
excess of moisture. Contradictory as this may appear, it is strictly true 
as to calcareous earth. In common with clay, calcareous earth possesses 
the power of making sandy soils more close and firm — and in common 
with sand, the power of making clay soils lighter. When sand and clay 
thus alter the textures of soils, their operation is altogether mechanical ; 
but calcareous earth must have some chemical action also in producing 
such effects, as its power is far greater than that of either sand or clay. A 
very great quantity of clay would be required to stiffen a sandy soil per- 
ceptibly, and still more sand would be necessary to make a clay soil much 
lighter — so that the cost of such improvement would generally exceed the 

* Perhaps it may be considered that there are exceptions to the above doctrine in the' 
well established facts that certain plants will not grow well, if at all, in soils containing 
so little lime as to be classed as acid soils, no matter how rich they may be made for the 
time by putrescent manures. Among trees, locust, papaw, and hackberry have been 
already named as plants of this kind; and red clover is as remarkable among grasses for 
requiring lime in the soil. Sainfoin is still more remarkable, and cannot be produced 
to profit, even if it will live, except on a highly calcareous soil. Lime then is certainly 
a specific manure for these plants ; that is, lime promotes their growth in a remarkable 
and peculiar degree, and they can scarcely live without a considerable quantity in the 
soil. Still it may be doubted whether it is that they require the lime as food, or for 
some other unknown purpose, no less indispensable. Except as to sainfoin* (of which 
I have no practical experience,) a moderate proportion of lime in a soil, such as will 
merely make it neutral, seems to add as much vigor to the growth of the plants named, 
as if it be given in ten-fold quantity. This would seem to contradict the supposition 
oi the lime serving as food, though it may be as indispensable to these plants as is their 
food. It is certain that dung, or other rotten vegetable matter, acts as food to all crops 
which it benefits ; and therefore it is, that, in every case of its use and benefit, a large 
quantity will always produce effects perceptibly better than a small quantity. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. (33 

benefit obtained. Much greater effects on the texture of soils are derived 
from much less quantities of calcareous earth, besides obtaining the more 
valuable operation of its other powers. 

Every substance that is open enough for air to enter, and the particles of 
which are not absolutely impenetrable, must absorb moisture from the at- 
mosphere. Aluminous earth, reduced to an impalpable powder, has strong 
absorbing powers. But this is not the form in which such soils can act — 
and a close and solid clay will scarcely admit the passage of air or water, 
and therefore cannot absorb much moisture except by its surface. Through 
sandy soils, the air passes freely ; but most of its particles are impenetrable 
by moisture, and therefore these soils are also extremely deficient in ab- 
sorbent power. Calcareous earth, by rendering clay more open to the 
entrance of air, and closing partially the too open pores of sandy soils, in- 
creases the absorbent powers of both. To increase that power in any soil, 
is to enable it to draw supplies of moisture from the air, in the driest 
weather, and to resist more strongly the waste by evaporation of light 
rains. A calcareous soil will so quickly absorb a hasty shower of rain as 
to appear to have received less than adjoining land of different character ; 
and yet if observed in summer, when under tillage, some days after a rain, 
and when other adjacent land appears dry on the surface, the part made 
calcareous will still show the moisture to be yet remaining, by its darker 
color. All the effects from this power of calcareous manures may be observed 
within a few years after their application — though none of them so strongly 
marked, as they are on lands made calcareous by nature, and in which 
time has aided and perfected the operation. These soils present great 
variety in their proportions of sand and clay ; yet the most clayey is friable 
enough, and the most sandy firm and close enough, to be considered soils of 
good texture ; and they resist the extremes of both wet and dry seasons, 
better than any other soils whatever. Time, and the increase of vegetable 
matter, will bring those qualities to the same perfection in soils made calca- 
reous by artificial means, as they are in soils made calcareous by nature. 

The subsequent gradual accumulation of vegetable or other putrescent 
matter in the soil, by the combining or fixing power of calcareous earth, 
must have yet another beneficial effect on vegetation. The soil is thereby 
made darker in color, and it consequently is made warmer, by more freely 
absorbing the rays of the sun. 

Additional and practical proofs of all the powers of calcareous earth will 
be furnished, when its use and effects as manure will be stated. I am 
persuaded, however, that enough has already been said both to establish and 
account for the different capacities of soils for improvement by putrescent 
manures. If the power of fixing manures in soils has been correctly 
ascribed to calcareous earth, that alone is enough to show that soils con- 
taining that ingredient, in sufficient quantity, must become rich; and that 
aluminous and silicious earths mixed in any proportions, and even with ve- 
getable or other putrescent matter added, can never form other than a 
sterile soil. 



64 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY, 

CHAPTER IX. 

ACTION OF CAUSTIC LIME AS MANURE. CLASSIFICATION OF MANURES. 

The object of this essay is to treat only of calcareous earth (as before 
defined) as a manure, and not of pure lime, nor of manures in general. 
Still the nature of that which is properly my subject is so intimately con- 
nected with some other kinds of manures, and is so liable to be confounded 
with others which act very differently, that frequent references to both 
classes have been and will be again necessary. To make such references 
more plain and useful, some general remarks and opinions will now be 
submitted, as to the peculiar modes of the operation of various manures, 
and particularly of lime. 

Until now I have been careful to say as little as possible of pure or quick 
lime, for fear of my meaning being mistaken, from the usual practice of 
confounding it with calcareous earth ; or of considering both its first and 
later operations as belonging to one and the same manure. The connexion 
between the manures is so intimate, and yet their actions so distinct, that it 
is necessary to mark the points of resemblance as well as those of dif- 
ference. 

My own use of quick or caustic lime as a manure has not extended be- 
yond a few acres ; and I do not pretend to know any thing from experience 
of its first or caustic effects. But Davy's simple and beautiful theory of its 
operation carries conviction with it, and in accordance with his opinions 
I shall state the theory, and thence attempt to deduce its proper practical 
use. 

By a sufficient degree- of heat, the carbonic acid is driven off from shells, 
lime-stone, or chalk, and the remainder is pure or caustic lime. In this 
state it has a powerful decomposing power on all putrescent animal and 
vegetable matters, which it exerts on every such substance in the soils to 
which it is applied as manure. If the lime thus meets with solid and inert 
vegetable matters, it hastens their decomposition, renders them soluble, and 
brings them into use and action as manure. But such vegetable and ani- 
mal matters as were already decomposed, and fit to support growing plants, 
are injured by the addition of lime ; as the chemical action which takes 
place between these bodies forms different compounds, which are always 
less valuable than the putrid or soluble matters were, before being acted on 
by the lime.* 

This theory will direct us to expect profit from applying caustic lime to 
all soils containing much unrotted and inert vegetable matter, as our acid, 
wood-land when first cleared, and perhaps worn fields, covered with broom- 
grass ; and to avoid the application of lime, or (what is the same thing) to 
destroy previously its caustic quality by exposure to the air, for all good soils 
containing soluble vegetable or animal matters, and on all poor soils deficient 
in inert, as well as in active nourishment for plants. The warmth of our 
climate so much aids the fermentation of all putrescent matters in soils, 
that it can seldom be required to hasten it by artificial means. To check 
its rapidity is much more necessary, to avoid the waste of manures in our 
lands. But in England, and still more in Scotland, the case is very different. 
There, the coldness and moisture of the climate greatly retard the fermen- 
tation of the vegetable matter that falls on the land ; so much so that, in 
certain situations, the most favorable to such results, the vegetable cover is 

* Davy'.* Agr. Chein. Lect. vii. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. £5 

increased by the deposite of every successive year, and forms those vege- 
table soils which are called moor, peat, and bog lands. Vegetable matter 
abounds in these soils, and sometimes it even forms the greater bulk for 
many feet in depth ; but it is inert, insoluble, and useless, and the soil is 
unable to bring any useful crop, though containing vegetable matter in 
such great excess. Many millions of acres in Britain are of the different 
grades of peat soils, of which almost none exist in the eastern half of 
Virginia. Upon this ground of the difference of climate, and its effects on 
fermentation, I deduce the opinion that caustic lime would be serviceable 
much more generally in Britain than here; and indeed that there are very 
few cases in which the caustic quality would not do our arable lands more 
harm than good. This is no contradiction to the great improvements 
which have been mado on many farms by applying lime ; for its caustic 
quality was seldom allowed to act at all. Lime is continually changing to 
the carbonate of lime; and, in practice, no exact line of separation can be 
drawn between the transient effects of the one, and the later, but durable 
improvement from the other. Lime powerfully attracts the carbonic acid 
of which it was deprived by heat, and that acid is universally diffused 
through the atmosphere (though in a very small proportion,) and is pro- 
duced by every decomposing putrescent substance. Consequently, caustic 
lime, when on land, is continuially absorbing and combining with this acid ; 
and, with more or less rapidity, according to the manner of its application, 
is returning to its former state of mild calcareous earth. If spread as a 
top-dressing on grass lands— or on ploughed land, and superficially mixed 
with the soil by harrowing — or used in composts with fermenting vegetable 
matter— the lime is probably completely carbonated, before its causticity 
can act on the soil. In no case can lime, applied properly as manure, long 
remain caustic in the soil. Thus most applications of lime are, in effect, 
simply applications of calcareous earth but acting with greater energy and 
power at first, in proportion to its quantity, because more finely divided, 
and more equally distributed. 

Some account of the mode of using burnt lime in lower Virginia by 
many farmers who cannot as well avail themselves of cheaper means to 
render their land§ calcareous, and the effects produced, will be given in a 
subsequent part of this essay. 

By adopting the views which have been presented of the action of calca- 
reous earth, and of lime, as manures, and those which are generally re- 
ceived as to the modes of operation of other manures, the following table 
has been constructed, which may be found useful, though necessarily im- 
perfect, and in part founded only on conjecture. The various particular 
kinds of manures are arranged in the supposed order of their power, under 
the several heads or characters to which they belong ; and when one ma- 
nure possesses several different modes of action, the comparative force of 
each is represented by the letters annexed— the letter a designating its 
strongest or most valuable agency, b the next strongest, and so on as to c 
and d. 



66 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 



PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OP MANURES. 



Alimentary, or serving ■{ 
as food for plants— as 



f 
I 
Solvent of alimentary ■{ 
manures— as 

I 



Feathers, hair, woollen rags, 

Pounded bones, (b) 

All putrescent animal and vegeta- 
ble substances, as dung, 

Stable and farm-yard manures, (a) 

Straw, (a) 

Green crops ploughed in, and dead 
grass and weeds left on the sur- 
face, (a) 

Q,uick-lime,-(a) 
Potash and soap lie 1 (a) 
Wood ashes not drawn 1 (d) 
Paring and burning the surface of 
the soil, (a) 



.2 i 



d 
3 

50 



Fixers, or Mordants — 
serving to combine with 
or set other manures in 
soils — as 



r 



Mechanical, or im- 
proving by altering the 
texture of soil — as 



I 



r 

Neutralizing acids— as ■{ 
i 

I 



Calcareous earth, including 
Lime become mild by exposure, (a) 
Chalk, (a) 

Lime-stone gravel, (a) 
Wood ashes, (b) 
Fossil shells, (or shell marl,) (a) 
Marl (a calcareous clay,) (a) 
Old mortar and lime cements. 

All calcareous manures, (b) 
Q,uick-lime, (6) 
Potash and soap lie, (6) 
Wood ashes, (c) 

All calcareous manures, (c) 

Marl, (6) 

Clay, 

Sand, 

Fermenting vegetable manures, (b) 

Green manures, (6) 

Unfermented litter. (6) 



Stimulating— as 



Specific, or furnishing 
ingredients necessary for 
particular plants— as 



Nitre? 

Common salt 1 (b) 

Sulphate of lime, or gypsum, (for 

clover,) 
Gypseous earth, (or green-sand 

earth,) for clover. 
Calcareous manures (for clover) 
Phosphate of lime, (for wheat) in 
Bones, (a) and 
Drawn ashes, (a) 
Salt, for asparagus, (a) 



ESSAY 



CALCAREOUS MANURES. 



PART SECOND-PRACTICE. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MARL AND LIME. REMARKS ON THE 
EXPERIMENTS TO FOLLOW. 

Proposition 5. Calcareous manures will give to our toorst soils a power of 
retaining putrescent manures, equal to that of the best — and ivill cause 
more productiveness, and yield more profit, than any other improvement 
practicable in lower Virginia. 

The theory of the constitution of fertile and barren soils, has now been 
regularly discussed. It remains to show its practical application, in the use 
of calcareous earth as a manure. If the opinions which have been main- 
tained are unsound, the attempt to reduce them to practice will surely ex- 
pose their futility ; and if they pass through that trial, agreeing with and 
confirmed by facts, their truth and value must stand on impregnable ground. 
The belief in the most important of these opinions, (the incapacity of poor 
soils for improvement, and its cause,) first directed the commencement of 
my use of calcareous manures ; and the manner of my practice has also 
been directed entirely by the views which have been exhibited. Yet in 
every respect the results of practice have sustained the theory of the action 
of calcareous manures ; unless indeed there be claimed as exceptions the 
injuries which have been caused by applying too heavy dressings to weak 
lands; and also the beneficial effects of proper practice being found to 
exceed in degree what the theory seemed to promise. 

My use of calcareous earth as manure has been almost entirely confined 
to that form of it which is so abundant in the neighborhood of our tide- 
waters—the beds of fossil shells, together with the earth with which they 
are found mixed. The shells are in various states— in some beds generally 
whole, and in others reduced nearly to a coarse powder. The earth which 
fills their vacancies, and serves to make the whole a compact mass, in most 
cases is principally silicious sand, and contains no putrescent or valuable 
matter, other than the calcareous.* . The same effects might be expected 
from calcareous earth in any other form, whether chalk, lime-stone gravel. 

* From later observation I have formed the opinion that the coloring matter of blue 
marls is vegetable extract, chemically combined with the calcareous matter, of which 
opinion the grounds will be stated hereafter. But still the amount of this vegetable ad 
mixture is too small to have much appreciable effect as food for plants ; and, practically 
the general position assumed above may yet bp considered us altogether trup. 



(j$ CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE. 

woud ashes, or lime— though the two last have other qualities besides the 
calcareous. During the short time that lime can remain quick or caustic, 
after being applied as manure, it exerts (as before stated) a solvent power, 
sometimes beneficial and at others hurtful, which has no connexion with its 
subsequent and permanent action as calcareous earth. 

These natural deposites of fossil shells are commonly, but very impro- 
perly, called marl. This misapplied term is particularly objectionable, be- 
cause it induces erroneous views of this manure. Other earthy manures 
have long been used in England under the name of marl, and numerous 
publications have described their general effects, and recommended their 
use. When the same name is given here to a different manure, many per- 
sons will consider both operations as similar, and perhaps may refer to 
English authorities for the purpose of testing the truth of my opinions, and 
the results of my practice. But no two operations called by the same 
name can well differ more. The process which it is my object to recom- 
mend, is simply the application of calcareous earth in any form whatever, 
to soils tvanting that ingredient, and generally being quite destitute of it ; 
and the propriety of the application depends entirely on the knowing that 
the manure contains calcareous earth, and what proportion, and that the 
soil contains none. In England, the most scientific agriculturists apply the 
term marl correctly to a calcareous clay of peculiar texture; but most 
authors, as well as mere cultivators, have used it for any smooth soapy 
clay, which may or may not have contained, so far as they knew, any pro- 
portion whatever of calcareous matter. Indeed, in most cases, they seem 
unconscious of the presence as well as of the importance of that ingre- 
dient, by their not alluding to it when attempting most carefully to point out 
the characters by which marl may be known. Still less do they inquire into 
the deficiency of calcareous earth in soils proposed to be marled— but 
apply any earth which either science or ignorance may have called marl, 
to any soils within a convenient distance— and rely upon the subsequent 
effects to direct whether the operation shall be continued or abandoned. 
Authors of the highest character, (as Sinclair and Young, for example,) 
when telling of the practical use and valuable effects of marl, omit giving 
the strength of the manure, and generally even its nature— and in no in- 
stance have I found the ingredients of the soil stated, so that the reader 
might learn what kind of operation really was described, or be enabled to 
form a judgment of its propriety. From all this, it follows that though 
what is called marling in England may sometimes (though very rarely, as 
I infer,) be the same chemical operation on the soil that I am recommending, 
yet it may also be either applying clay to sand, or clay to chalk, or true 
marl to either of those soils ; and the reader will generally be left to guess, 
in every separate case, which of all these operations is meant by the term 
marling. For these reasons, the practical knowledge to be gathered from 
all this mass of written instruction on marling will be far less abundant 
than the inevitable errors and mistakes. The recommendations of marl 
by English authors, induced me very early to look to what was here called 
by the same name, as a means for improvement. But their descriptions of 
the manure convinced me that our marl was nothing like theirs, and thus 
actually deterred me from using it, until other and more correct views in- 
structed me that its value did not depend on its having " a soapy feel," or 
on any admixture of clay whatever. 

Nevertheless, much valuable information may be obtained from these 
same works, on calcareous manure, or on marl, (in the sense that term is 
used among us) — but under a different head, viz., lime. This manure is gene- 
rally treated of with as little clearness or correctness, as is done with marl ; 



i RACJ [( i. gg 

bat the readei at Jeasl cannot be mistaken in this, that the ultimate effecl 
of everj application of lime must be to make thi soil more calcareous; 
and t«> that cause solely arc to be imputed all the long-continued beneficial 
consequences* and great profits, which have been derived from liming. 

Hut excepting this one point, in which we cannot he misled by ignorance 
or want of precision, the mass of writings on lime, as well as on calcareous 
manures in general, will need much sifting to yield instruction. The opi 
nions published on the operation of lime are so many, so various, and so con- 
tradictory, that it seems as if each author had hazarded a guess, and added 
it to a compilation of those of all who had preceded him. Fora reader of 
these publications to be able to reject all that is erroneous in reasoning, and 
in statements of facts— or inapplicable, on account of difference of soil, or 
other circumstances— and thus obtain only what is true, and useful— it 
would be necessary for him first to understand the subject better than 
most of those whose opinions he was studying. Indeed it was not possible 
for them to be correct, when treating (as most do) of Mime as one kind of 
manure, and every different form of the carbonate of lime as so many 
others. Only one distinction of this kind (as to operation and effects) 
should be made, and never lost sight of— and that is one of substance, still 
more than of name. Pure or quick-lime, and carbonate of lime are ma- 
nures entirely different in their powers and effects. But it should be re- 
membered that the substance that was pure lime when just burned, often 
becomes carbonate of lime before it is used, (by absorbing carbonic acid 
from the atmosphere,) — still more frequently before a crop is planted — and 
probably always before the first crop ripens. Thus, it should lie home in 
mind that the manure spoken of as lime is often at first, and always at a 
later period, neither more nor less than calcareous earth ; that lime, which 
at different periods is two distinct kinds of manure, is considered in agri- 
cultural treatises as only one; and to calcareous earth are given as many 
different names, all considered to have different values and effects, as there 
are different forms and mixtures of the substance presented by nature. 

But, however incorrect and inconvenient the term marl may be. custom 
has too strongly fixed its application for any proposed change to be adopt- 
ed. Therefore, 1 must submit to use the word marl to mean beds of fossil 
shells, notwithstanding my protest against the propriety of its being so ap- 
plied. 

The following experiments are reported, either on account of having 
been accurately made and carefully observed, or as presenting such results 
as have been generally obtained on similar soils, from applications of fossil 
shells to nearly six hundred acres of Coggins Point farm (made before 
18301) II had been my habit to make written memoranda of such things; 
and the material circumstance:-; of these experiments were put in writing 
at the time they occurred, or not long after. Some of the experiments 
were, from their commencement, designed to be permanent, ami their re 
suits to be measured as long as circumstances might permit. These were 
made with the utmost care. But generally, when precise amounts are not 
stated, the experiments were less carefully made, and their results reported 
by <_iuess. Every measurement staled, of land or of crop, was made in 
my presence. The average strength of the different marls used was ascer 
tained by a sufficient number ol analyses; and the quantity applied was 
known by measuring some of the loads, and having them dropped at r< 
distances. At the risk ol being tedious, I shall stateevery circumstani 
posed to affect the result* ol thee periments; and the manner of d< 
tion, and of reference, necessary to use, will requi pee of attention 

that few readers may be disposed to ■■■■■>> . to enable them to derive tl i full 

9 



70 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

benefit of these details. But, however disagreeable it may be to give to 
them the necessary attention, I will presume to say that these experiments 
deserve it. They will present practical proofs of what otherwise would be 
but uncertain theory — and give to this essay its principal claim to be con- 
sidered truly instructive and useful. 

When these operations were commenced, I knew of no other experi- 
ments having been made with fossil shells, except two, which had been 
tried long before, and were considered as proving the manure to be too 
worthless to be resorted to again. 

The earliest of these old experiments was made at Spring Garden, in 
Surry, about 1775, by Mr. Wm. Short, proprietor of that estate. The extent 
marled was eight or ten acres, on poor sandy land. Nothing is now known 
of the effects for the first twenty-five or thirty years, except that they were 
too inconsiderable to induce a repetition of the experiment. The system 
of cultivation was doubtless as exhausting as usual at that time. Since 
1812, the farm has been under mild and improving management generally. 
No care has been taken to observe the progress either of improvement or 
exhaustion on the marled piece; but there is no doubt that the product 
has continued for the last fifteen years better than that of the adjacent land. 
Mr. Francis Ruffin, the present owner of the farm, believed that the pro- 
duct was not much increased in favorable seasons ; but when the other 
land suffered, either from too much wet, or dry weather, the crop on the 
marled land was comparatively but slightly injured. The loose reports 
that have been obtained respecting this experiment are at least conclusive 
in showing the long duration of the effects produced. 

The other old experiment referred to was made at Aberdeen, Prince 
, George county, in 1803, by Mr. Thomas Cocke. Three small spots (nei- 
ther exceeding thirty yards square,) of poor land, kept before and since 
generally under exhausting culture, were covered with this manure. He 
found a very inconsiderable early improvement, which he thought altoge- 
ther an inadequate reward for the labor of applying the marl. The ex- 
periment, being deemed of no value, was but little noticed until after the 
commencement of my use of the same manure. On examination, the im- 
provement appeared to have increased greatly on two of the pieces, but 
the third was evidently the worse for the application. For a number of 
years after making this experiment, Mr. Cocke considered it as giving full 
proof of the worthlessness of the manure. But more correct views of its 
mode of operation, induced by my experiments and reasoning, induced 
him to recommence its use ; and no one has met with more success, or 
produced more valuable early improvement. 

Inexperience, and the total want of any practical guide, caused my ap- 
plications, for the first few years, to be frequently injudicious, particularly 
as to the quantities laid on. For this reason, these experiments will show 
what was actually done, and the effects thence derived, and not what bet- 
ter information would have directed as the most profitable course. 

The measurements of corn that will be reported were all made at the 
time and place of gathering. The measure used for all except very small 
quantities was a barrel, holding five bushels when filled level, and which 
being filled twice with ears of corn, well shaken to settle them, and heaped, 
was estimated to make five bushels of grain ; and the products will be re- 
ported in grain, according to this estimate. This mode of measurement 
will best serve for comparing results ; but in most cases it is far from giv- 
ing correctly the actual quantity of dry and sound grain, for the following 
reasons. The common large soft-grained white corn was the kind culti- 
vated, which was always cut down for sowing wheat before the best 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE. 



71 



matured was dry enough to grind, or even to be stored for keeping ; and 
when the ears from the poorest land were in a state to lose considerably 
more by shrinking. Yet, for fear of some mistake occurring if measure- 
ments were delayed until the crop was gathered, these experiments were 
measured when the land was ploughed for wheat in October. The subse- 
quent loss from shrinking would of course be greatest on the corn from 
the poorest and most backward land, as the most defective and unripe 
ears would always be there found. Besides, every ear, however imperfect or 
rotten, was included in the measurement. For these several reasons, the 
actual increase of product on the marled land was always greater than will 
appear from the comparison of quantities measured ; and from the state- 
ments of all such early measurements, there ought to be allowed a deduc- 
tion, varying from 10 or 15 per cent, on the best and most forward corn, 
to 30 or 35 per cent, on the latest and most defective. Having stated the 
grounds of this estimate, practical men can draw such conclusions as their 
experience may direct, from the dates and amounts of the actual measure- 
ments that will be reported. Some careful trials of the amount of shrink- 
age in particular experiments will be hereafter stated. 

No grazing had been permitted on any land from which experiments will 
be reported, since 1814, (or since being cleared, if in forest at that time,) 
unless the contrary shall be specially stated. The cropping had also been 
mild, during that time, though previously it was the usual exhausting 
three-shift and grazing course. 



CHAPTER 11. 

EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES ON ACID SANDY SOILS, NEWLY CLEARED. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

As most of the experiments on new land were made on a single piece of 
twenty-six acres, a general description or plan of the whole will enable me 
to be better understood, as well as to be more concise, by references being 
made to the annexed figure. It forms part of the ridge or high table land 
lying between James river and the nearest stream running into Powell's 
creek. The surface is nearly level, but slightly undulating. The soil in its 
natural state very similar throughout, but the part next to the line B C 




72 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



somewhat mure sandy, and more productive in com, than the part next 
to A D ; and, in like manner, it is lighter along A e, than nearer to D f. 
The whole soil, a gray sandy acid loam, not more than two inches deep at 
first, resting on a yellowish sandy sub-soil, from one to two feet deep, when 
it changes to clay. Natural growth mostly pine— next in quantity, oaks 
of different kinds— a little of dogwood and chinquepin— whortleberry 
bushes throughout in plenty. The quality of the soil better than the ave- 
rage of ridge lands in general, but yet quite poor. Judging from experience 
ofadjoining grounds and similar soil, this land would have produced as its 
early and best crop, and under the best treatment, about 12 bushels of corn 
to the acre, well ripened and fully shrunk. And if thereafter kept under 
ordinary culture and management, the products would have gradually and 
speedily sunk to 5 bushels to the acre. Being still less suitable to wheat, 
that crop would have been scarcely worth being sown on the land in its 
best natural state, (when the product might be 6 bushels,) and certainly 
not at all after a few years of the usual downward progress. The effects of 
putrescent manures were very transient, as on all such poor lands. 

Experiment 1. 

The part B C g h, about eleven acres, grubbed and the trees cut down 
in the winter of 1814-15 — suffered to lie three years with most of the 
wood and brush on it. February, 18 IS, my earliest application of marl 
was made on the smaller part B C in I, about 2^ acres. Marl, containing 
33 per cent, of pure calcareous earth, and the balance silicious sand, ex- 
cept a very small proportion of clay ; the shelly matter finely divided. 
Quantity of marl to the acre, one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred 
"heaped bushels. The whole space B C g h coultered, and planted in its 
first crop of corn in 1818. This was my earliest experiment of calcareous 
manures. 

Results. <(IS1S. The corn on the marled land evidently much better — 
supposed difference, forty per cent. 

1819. In wheat. The difference as great, perhaps more so — particularly 
to be remarked from the commencement to the end of the winter, by the 
marled part preserving a green color, while the remainder was seldom 
visible from a short distance, and in the spring stood much thinner, from 
the greater number of plants killed during the winter. The line of separa- 
tion very perceptible throughout both crops. 

1820. At rest. During the summer marled all B C g h, at the rate of five 
hundred bushels, without excepting the space before covered, and a small 
part of that made as heavy as one thousand bushels, counting both dress- 
ings. The shells now generally coarse— average strength of the marl, 37 
per cent, of calcareous earth. In the winter after, ploughed three inches 
deep only, as nearly as could be ; which however, shallow as it was, made 
the whole new surface yellow, by bringing the barren sub-soil of yellow 
sand to the top. One of my neighbors, an intelligent and experienced 
farmer, who saw the land when in this state, pronounced that I " had ruined 
the land for ever, by ploughing and turning the soil too deep." 

Results continued, 1821. In corn. The whole a remarkable growth for 
such a soil. The oldest (and heaviest) marled piece better than the other, 
but not enough so to show the dividing line. The average product of the 
whole supposed to have been fully twenty-five bushels of ripe and good 
corn to the acre. 

1822. In wheat— and red clover sowed on all the old marling, and one 
or two acres adjoining. A severe drought in June killed the greater part 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE, 73 

of the clover, but left it much the thickest on the oldest marled piece, so as 
again to show the dividing line, and to yield, in 1823, two middling crops 
to the scythe -the first that I had known obtained from any acid soil, with- 
out high improvement from putrescent manures. 

1823. At rest— nothing taken off, except the clover on B C m I. 

1824. In corn— product seemed as before, and its rate may be inferred 
from the actual measurements on other parts, which will be stated in the 
next experiment, the whole twenty-six acres being now cleared, and brought 
under like cultivation. 

Experiment 2. 

The part efn 0, cleared and cultivated in corn at the same times as the 
preceding— but treated differently in some other respects. This had been 
deprived of nearly all its wood, and the brush burnt, at the time of cutting 
down- and its first crop of corn (1818) being very inferior, was not fol- 
lowed by wheat in 1819, because promising too little product to pay for the 
cost of the crop. This gave two years of rest before the crop of 1821 — 
and five years rest out of six, since the piece had been cut down. As be- 
fore stated, the soil rather lighter on the side next to e, than nf. 

March, 1821. A measured acre near the middle, covered with six hun- 
dred bushels of calcareous sand, containing 20 percent, of calcareous earth, 
the upper layer of another body of fossil shells. 

Results. 1821. In corn. October— the four adjoining quarter acres, 

marked 1, 2, 3, 4, extending nearly across the piece, two of them within, 

and two without the marled part, measured as follows : 

Not marled, No. 1, 6g- ) .. nol , ,, - 

t% i\ T a r > average to the acre 22 1 bushels of grain. 

Do. No. 4, 5g- $ to 

M Da d ' No! 3, l\ \ ^ er ^m bushels. 

The remainder of this piece was marled before sowing wheat in 1821. 

1823. At rest. 

1824. In corn — distance 5\ by 3^ feet, making 243G stalks to the acre. 
October 1 1th, measured two quarter acres very nearly coinciding with Nos. 
2 and 3 in the last measurement. The products now were as follows : 

No 2 brought 7 bushels 3^ pecks, } 

or per acre, - - -31.1V average 3 1 .2^ 

No 3 brought 8 bushels, - - 32 ) 

Average in 1821, .... 33.1 

Experiment 3. 

The part efgh was cut down in January, 1821, and the land planted 
in corn the same year. The coultering and after-tillage very badly exe- 
cuted, on account of the number of whortleberry and other roots. As 
much as was convenien. was marled at six hundred bushels, 37 per cent, 
and the dressing limited by a straight line. Distance of corn 51 by :!.l 
feet— 2262 stalks to the acre. 

Results. 1821. October — on each side of the dividing line, a piece of 
twenty-eight by twenty-one corn hills measured as follows : 
No. 1, 588 stalks, not marled, 2 bushels, equal to 7 bushels 3 pecks the acre. 
No. 2, 588 stalks, marled, 4$ 16 bushels 2£ pecks. 

1822. In wheat, the remainder having been previously marled. 

1823. At rest. During the following winter it was covered with a 
second dressing of marl at 250 bushels, 45 per cent., making 850 bushels to 
the acre altogether. 



74 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE 

1824. In corn. Two quarter acres, chosen as nearly as possible on the 
same spaces that were measured in 1821, produced as follows: 

No. 1 made 8 bushels, 2 pecks, or to the acre, 34 bushels. 
The same in 1821, before marling, 7.3^ 



Increase, 26. Of 



No. 2 made 7 bushels, 2^ pecks, or to the acre, 30.2 
The same in 1821, after marling, 16.2| 



Increase average, - - - - - 13.3^ 
The second dressing of marl, or the larger quantity, had but little effect 
in making the increase of crops greater than in 1821. The difference was 
caused mainly by the greater length of time since the clearing of the land. 
1825. The whole twenty-six acres, including the subjects of all these ex- 
periments and observations, were in wheat. The first marled piece, in 
Exp. 1, was decidedly the best— and a gradual decline was to be seen to 
the latest. I have never measured the product of wheat from any experi- 
ment, on account of the great trouble and difficulty that would be encoun- 
tered. Even if the wheat from small measured spaces could be reaped 
and secured separately, during the urgent labors of harvest, it would be 
scarcely possible afterwards to carry the different parcels through all the 
operations necessary to show exactly the clean grain derived from each. 
But without any separate measurement, all my observations convince me 
that the increase of wheat, from marling, was at least equal to that of corn, 
during the first few years, and certainly greater afterwards, in compari- 
son to the product before using marl. 

It was from the heaviest marled part of Exp. 1, that soil was analyzed 
to find how much calcareous earth remained in 1826, (page 50.) Before 
that time the marl and soil had been well mixed by ploughing to the depth 
of five inches. One of the specimens of this soil then examined consisted 
of the following parts— half an inch of the surface, and consequently the 
undecomposed weeds upon it, being excluded. 
1000 grains of soil yielded 

7n69 grains of silicious sand moderately fine, 
1 5 finer sand, 



784 



8 calcareous earth, from the manure applied, 
180 finely divided gray clay, vegetable matter, &c. 
28 lost in the process. 



1000 



This part, it has been already stated, was originally somewhat lighter 
than the general texture of the remainder of the land. 

Experiment 4. 

The four acres marked AD n o were cleared in the winter of 1823--4. 
The lines p q and r s divide the piece nearly into quarters. The end nearest 
A p o is lighter, and best for corn, and was still better for the first crop, 
owing to nearly all that half having been accidentally burnt over. After twice 
coultering, marl and putrescent manures were applied as follows ; and the 
products measured, October 1 1th, the same year. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 75 

.<? q not marled nor manured — produced on a quarter acre, (No. 4,) of 
soft and badly filled corn, 

Bush.P. 

3 bushels, or per acre 1 2. 

q r and r p, marled 800 bushels (45 per cent.) by three mea- 
surements of different pieces — 

(Quarter acre (No. 1.) 5 bushels, very nearly, or per acre 1 9.3J 

Eighth (No. 2) 2.3^ $ average ) 22.2 

Eighth (No. 3)3.1$ { 24. U \ 27. 

s t manured at 900 to 1 100 bushels to the acre, of which, 
Quarter acre (No. 5) with rotted corn stalks, from a winter 

cow-pen, gave 5.2 2 22.2 

Eighth (No. 6) with stable manure, 4.1 : ; - - - 35.2 

Eighth (No. 7) covered with the same heavy dressings 

of stable manure, and of marl also, gave 4.2 36. 

p w, marled at 450 bushels, brought not so good a crop as 
the adjoining r p at 800. 

The distance was 5 2 by 3^ feet. Two of the quarter acres were mea- 
sured by a surveyor's chain, (as were four other of the experiments of 
1824,) and found to vary so little from the distance counted by corn rows, 
that the difference was not worth notice. 

1825. In wheat, the different marked pieces seemed to yield in compari- 
son to each other, proportions not perceptibly different from those of the 
preceding crop — but the best, not equal to any of the land marled before 
1822, as stated in the 1st, 2d and 3d experiments. 

1827. Wheat on a very rough and imperfect summer fallow. This was 
too exhausting a course (being three grain crops in the four shift rotation,) 
— but was considered necessary to check the growth of bushes that had 
sprung from the roots still living. The crop was small, as might have been 
expected from its bad preparation. 

1828. Corn— in rows five feet apart, and about three feet of distance 
along the rows, the seed being dropped by the step. Owing to unfavorable 
weather, and to insects and other vermin, not more than half of the first 
planting of this field lived— and so much replanting of course caused its 
product to be much less matured than usual, on the weaker land. All the 
part not marled (and more particularly that manured) was so covered by 
sorrel, as to require ten times as much labor in weeding as the marled 
parts, which, as in every other such case, bore no sorrel. October 15th, 
gathered and measured the corn from the several spaces, which were 
laid off (by the chain) as nearly as could be, on the same land as in 1824. 
The products so obtained, together with those of the previous and sub- 
sequent courses of tillage, will be presented below in a tabular form, for 
the purpose of being more readily compared. 

On the wheat succeeding this crop, clover seed was sown, but very 
thinly, and irregularly. On the parts not marled, only a few yards width 
received seed, which the next year showed the expected result of scarcely 
any living clover, and that very mean. On the marled portions, the growth 
of clover was of middling quality. Was not mowed nor grazed, but seed 
gathered by hand both in 1830 and 1831. 

1832. Again in corn. It was soon evident that much injury was caused 
to the marled half qp n, by the too great quantity applied. A considera- 
ble proportion of the stalks, during their growth, showed strongly the 
marks of disease from that cause, and some were rendered entirely barren. 
A few stalks only had appeared hurt by the quantity of marl in 1828. On 
the lightly marled piece, iv p, and also on .v /, where the heaviest marling 



76 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE 



was accompanied by stable manure, there appeared no sign of injury 
The products of the three successive crops were as follows : 



MARKS. 


DESCRIPTION. 


PRODUCTS 


OF GRAIN PER ACRE. 


1st course. 


2d course. 1 


3d course. 




1S24. 


1828. 


1832. 




October 11. 


October 15 


October 2f. 




Bush, pecks 


Bush. pks. 


Bush. pks. 


s q 


Not marled or manured, 12 


21 1 


17 31 


qr \ 


Marled at 800 bushels, 1 19 3.]- 


28 15 


28 


rp 2 


The same, 22 2 } 


31 0.1 


27 3 


rp 3 


The same, 27 5 






st 5 


Cow-pen manure only, 900 to 1100 








bushels, 22 2 


25 2 


more than sq 


st 6 


Stable manure only, 900 to 1100^ 








bushels, 1 35 2 


29 


28 1 


wt 7 


Marl and stable manure, both as 










above, 


36 


33 2 


37 3^ 


w p 


Marled at 450 bushels, Less (han t ) 

p (800) 5 


Equal tor p 


31 3 



An accidental omission prevented the measurement of s t 5, in 1832. 

This experiment has been made with much trouble, and every care be- 
stowed to ensure accuracy. Still several causes have operated to affect 
the correctness of the results, and to prevent the comparative products 
showing the true rate of improvement, either from the marl or the putres- 
cent manure. These causes will be briefly stated. 

1st. The quantity of marl (800 bushels) on q r and r p is nearly double 
the amount that ought to have been used ; and this error has not only in- 
creased the expense uselessly, but has served to prevent the increase of 
product that would otherwise have taken place. This loss is proved by 
the gradual increase, and at last the greater product of w p, marled at only 
450 bushels. 

2d, The comparative superiority of all the marled ground to s q, not 
marled, is lessened by this circumstance : most of the large logs, as well 
as all the small branches, were burnt upon the land, when it was cleared 
in 1 824, before the experiment was commenced ; and the ashes have dura- 
bly improved a spot where each of these large fires was made on s 7, but 
have done no good, and perhaps have been injurious, to the marled pieces 
that were made sufficiently calcareous without the addition of ashes. At 
least, the good effect of ashes, on spots, is very evident in s q, and has 
helped somewhat to increase all its measured products, and no such benefit 
has been visible on the marled parts. 

3rd. The quantity of putrescent manure applied to s t (900 to 1100 
bushels) was much too great both for fair experiment and profit ; and the ex- 
cess of quantity, together with the imperfectly rotted state of the stable 
manure, has given more durability to the effect, than is to be expected from 
a more judicious and economical rate of manuring on such land when not 
marled. For these several reasons, it is evident that far more satisfactory 
results than even these would have been obtained, if only half as much of 
either marl or manure had been applied. 

There are other circumstances to be considered, which, if not attended 
to, will cause the comparative increase or decrease of product in this ex- 
periment to be misunderstood. It is well known that poor land put under 
tillage immediately after being cleared, as this was in 1824, will not yield 
near as much as on the next succeeding course of crops. This increase, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRAC 1 K IE 



77 



which depends merely on the effects of time, operates independently of all 

other means lor improvement that the land may' -ssess ; and its rate, in 
this experiment, may be fairly estimated by the increase on the piece s g 
from 1824 to 1828. The increase here, where time only acted, was from 
12 to 2l£ bushels. But as the corn gathered here was always much the 
most imperfectly ripened, and would therefore lose the most by shrinking, 
I will suppose eight bushels to be the rate of increase from time, and that 
so much of the product of all the pieces should be attributed to that cause. 
Then to estimate alone the increased or diminished effects of marl, or ma- 
nure on the other pieces, eight bushels should be deducted from all the 
different applications, and the estimate will stand thus : 





1824. 


1828. 


-a •£ 


u 


Decrease 


, 


q r 1 
rp2 
rp3 
st 5 
st 6 


B. P. 
19 3$ 

22 2 
36 2 


B. P. 

28 l£ 

31 

25 
29 


B. 

8 

8 

8 
8 


B.P, 
2 


B P. 

1 I] 

5 2 
14 2 


From 800 bushels of marl. 

800 bushels of marl. 

1000 bush, cow-pen manure 
1000 bush, stable manure. 



Even the piece covered with both marl and stable manure (to t) shows 
according to this estimate a diminished effect equal to \0h bushels ; which 
was owing to the marl not being able to combine with, and fix, so great a 
quantity of manure, in addition to the vegetable matter left by its natural 
growth of wood. The piece w p, marled at 450 bushels alone, has shown 
a steady increase of product at each return of tillage, and thereby has 
given evidence of its being the only improvement made in such manner as 
both judgment and economy would have directed. 

After the crop and measurement of 1832, it was inferred that the separate 
products of such small spaces could no longer be relied on, owing to the 
mixture of the surfaces of adjacent parts, necessarily caused by tillage. 
Therefore the previously omitted parts were marled before the next course 
of crops came round. 



CHAPTER Iir. 



EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURE ON ACfD CLAY SOTLS, RECENTLY CLEARED. 



The two next experiments were made on another field of thirty acres of 
very uniform quality, marled and cleared in 1826 and the succeeding 
years. The soil is very stiff, close, and intractable under cultivation — 
^•erns to contain scarcely any sand— but, in fact, about one-half of it is 
composed of silicious sand, which is so fine, when separated, as to feel like 
the finest Hour. Only a small proportion of the sand is coarser than this 
state of impalpable powder. Aluminous earth of a dirty fawn color forms 
nearly all of its remaining ingredients. Before being cleared of the forest 
growth, and ploughed, the soil is not an inch deep; and all below, for many 
feet, is apparently composed of the like parts of clay and line sand. This 
is decidedly the most worthless kind of soil, in its natural state, that our 
district furnishes. It is better for wheat than for corn, though its product 
is contemptible in every thing. It is difficult to be made wet, or dry— and 
therefore suffers more than other soils from both dry and wet seasons, but 

10 



78 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

especially from the former. It is almost always either too wet or too dry 
for ploughing; and sometimes it will pass through both states in two or 
three clear and warm days. If broken up early in winter, the soil, instead 
of being pulverized by frost, like most clay lands, runs together again by 
freezing and thawing ; and by March, will have a sleek (though not a very 
even) crust upon the surface, quite too hard to plant on without a second 
ploughing. The natural growth is principally white and red oaks, a smaller 
proportion of pine, and an under-growth of whortleberry bushes throughout. 

Experiment 5. 

On one side of this field a marked spot of thirty-five yards square was 
left out, when the adjoining land was marled at the rate of- five hundred to 
six hundred bushels, (37 per cent.,) to the acre. Paths for the carts were 
opened through the trees, and the marl dropped and spread in January, 
1826, and the land cleared the following winter. Most of the wood was 
carried off for fuel ; the remaining logs and brush burnt on the ground, as 
usual, at such irregular distances as were convenient to the laborers. This 
part was perhaps the poorer, because wood had previously been cut here 
for fuel ; though only a few trees had been taken, here and there, each 
winter, for a long time past. 

Results, 1827. Planted in corn the whole recent clearing of fifteen acres 
— all marled, except the spot left out for experiment : broken up late and 
badly, and worse tilled, as the land was generally too hard, until the season 
was too far advanced to save the crop. The whole product so small, that 
it was useless to attempt to measure the products. The difference would 
have been only between a few imperfect ears on the marled ground, and 
still less — indeed almost nothing— on that not marled. 

1828. Again in corn— as well broken and cultivated as usual for such 
land. October 8th— cut down four rows of corn running through the land 
not marled, and eight others, alongside on the marled— all fifty feet in length. 
The rows had been laid off for five and a half feet— but were found to 
vary a few inches— for which the proper allowance was made, by calcula- 
tion. The spaces taken for measurement were caused to be thus small by 
a part of the corn having been inadvertently cut down and shocked, just 
before. The ears were shelled when gathered ; and the products, measured 
in a vessel which held (by trial) l-80th of a bushel, were as follows: 

On land not marled, 
4 rows, average 5 feet, and 50 in length, (500 square feet) 13£ measures, 

or to the acre, 7\ bushels. 

On adjoining marled land 
4 rows, average 5 feet 1 \ inches by 50 feet =5 1 2 square feet, 25| measures, 

or to the acre, 13^ bushels. 

4 next rows, 5 feet i\ inches by 50=537 square feet, 27? measures, 

or to the acre, 14 bushels. 

1829. In wheat. 

1830. At rest — the weeds, a scanty cover. 

1831. In corn. October 20th— measured by the chain equal spaces, 
and gathered and measured their products. The corn not marled was so 
imperfectly filled, that it was necessary to shell it, for fairly measuring the 
quantity. The marled parcels, being of good ears generally, were mea- 
sured as usual, by allowing two heaped measures of ears, for one of grain. 

On land not marled, 

363 square yards made 3 gallons, 

or to the acre, 5 bushels. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



79 



On marled land, close adjoining on one side, 
363 square yards made rather more than 6 gallons— to the acre, 10 bushels. 
363 square yards on another side, made not quite 8 gallons, 

or to the acre, 12 bushels. 

The piece not marled coincided with that measured in 1828, as nearly 
as their difference of size and shape permitted— as did the last named 
marled piece, with the two of 1828. The last crop was greatly injured 
by the wettest summer that I have ever known, which has caused the 
decrease of product exhibited in this experiment— which will be best seen 
in this form : 

Product of grain to the acre. 
1828— October 18. 1831— October 20. 

Not marled, - - -7 bushels 1 peck. - 5 bushels. 

Marled, (averaged,) - -13" 3 " -11" 

Experiment 6. 



e 


D 




£ C 


A 


E 


f 


B 





The remainder of the thirty acres was grubbed during the winter of 
1 826-7— marled the next summer at five hundred to six hundred bushels the 
acre; marl 40 per cent. A rectangle (A) 11 by 13 poles, was laid off by 
the chain and compass, and left without marl. All the surrounding land 
supposed to be equal in quality with A— and all level, except on the sides 
E and B, which were partly sloping, but not otherwise different. The soil 
suited to the general description given before ; no material difference known 
or suspected between the land on which 5th experiment was made and this, 
except that the latter had not been robbed of any wood for fuel, before 
clearing. The large trees (or all more than ten inches through,) were 
belted, and the smaller cut down in the beginning of J 828, and all the land 
west of the line ef was planted in corn. As usual, the tillage bad, and the 
crop very small. The balance lying east of e /, was coultered once, but as 
more labor could not be spared, nothing more was done with it until the 
latter part of the winter, 1829, when it was broken by two-horse ploughs, 
oats sown and covered by trowel ploughs— then clover sown, and a 
wooden-tooth harrow passed over to cover the seed, and to smooth down, 
in some measure, the masses of roots and clods. 

Results, 1829. The oats produced badly— but yielded more for the 
labor required than corn would have done. The young clover on the marled 
land was remarkably good, and covered the surface completely. In the 
unmarled part, A, only two casts through had been sown, for comparison, 
as I knew it would be a waste of seed. This looked as badly as had been 
expected. 



3Q CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

1830. The crop of clover would have been considered excellent even 
on good land, and was most remarkable for so poor a soil as this. The strips 
sown through A, had but little left alive, and that scarcely of a size to be 
observed, except one or two small tufts, where I supposed some marl had 
been deposited by the cleaning of a plough, or that ashes had been left, from 
burning the brush. The growth of clover was left undisturbed until after 
midsummer, when it was grazed by my small stock of cattle, but not 
closely. 

1831. Corn on the whole field. October 20th, measured carefully half 
an acre (10 by 8 poles) in A, the same in D, and half as much (10 by 4) 
in E. No more space could be taken on this side, for fear of getting within 
the injurious influence of the contiguous woods. No measurement was 
made on the side B, because a large oak, which the belting had not killed, 
affected its product considerably. Another accidental circumstance pre- 
vented my being able to know the product of the side C, which however 
was evidently and greatly inferior to all the marled land on which oats and 
clover had been raised. This side had been in corn, followed by wheat, 
and next (1830) under its spontaneous growth of weeds. The corn on each of 
the measured spaces was cut down, and put in separate shocks— and on 
Nov. 25th, when well dried, the parcels were shucked and measured, before 
being moved. We had then been gathering and storing the crop for more 
than fifteen days —and therefore these measurements may be considered as 
showing the amount of dry and firm grain, without any unusual deduction 
being required for shrinkage. 

Bushels. Pecks. 
A (half acre) made 7\ bushels of ears, or of grain to the acre, 7 1 

D (half acre) 16| 16 3 

"E (quarter acre) 11 22 

The sloping surface of the side E, prevented water from lying on it, and 
therefore it suffered less, perhaps not at all, from the extreme wetness of 
the summer, which evidently injured the growth on A and D, as well as of 
all the other level parts of the field. 

1832. The field in wheat. 

1833. In clover, which was grazed, though not closely, after it had 
reached its full growth. 

1834. Corn, a year earlier than would have been permitted by the four- 
shift rotation. The tillage was insufficient, and made still worse by the 
commencement of severe drought before the last ploughing was completed, 
which was thereby rendered very laborious, and imperfect withal. The 
drought continued through all August, and greatly injured the whole crop 
of corn. 

Results continued. October 22d. Marked off by a chain half an acre 
within the space A (8 by 10 poles) as much in D, and a quarter acre (10 by 
4 poles) in each of the other three sides C, B, and E, having each of the 
last four spaces as near as could be to the outlines of the space A. The 
products carefully measured (in the ears) yielded as follows : 

A, not marled, yielded 6 bush. 0| peck of grain, to the acre. 

D, marled, " 19 " 3| " « 

E, do. " 20 « 1 " 

C, do " 20 " 2 » " 

B, dp. " 20 « I J » 

In comparing these products with those of the same land in 1831, stated 
above, it should be remembered that the corn formerly measured was dry, 
while that of the last measurement had yet to lose greatly by shrinking. 
As after early gathering, the corn from the poorest land of course will lose 



CALGAREOUS MANURES PRACTICE. 



81 



most by drying, and as the ours on A were generally very defective and 
badly tilled, if the measurement had been made in the sound and well dried 
grain of each parcel, the product of A could not have exceeded one-fourth 
of that of the surrounding marled land, and probably was less. 

But though these differences of product present the improvement caused 
by marling in a striking point of view, this close and stubborn soil at best 
is very unfit for the corn crop ; and its highest value is found under clover, 
and in wheat on clover, of which some proofs will be found in the next ex- 
periment. The first crop of clover, however, after marling, has not since 
been equalled. 

My subsequent distant residence prevented my observing this field when 
under any matured crop, until in 1842, when in wheat. The growth on 
the unmarled space was certainly not more than one fourth as much as 
that of the surrounding ground. 

Experiment 7. 

Another piece of land of twenty-five acres, of soil and qualities similar 
to the last described, (Exp. 5 and 6,) was cleared in 1818, and about six 
acres marled in 1819, at about three hundred and fifty bushels. The course 
of cultivation was as follows : 

1820— Corn— benefit from marl very unequal— supposed to vary between 
twenty-five and eighty per cent. 

1821. Wheat— the benefit derived greater. 

1822. At rest. 

1823. Ploughed early for corn, but not planted. The whole marled at 
the rate of six hundred bushels (40 per cent.) again ploughed in August, 
and sown in wheat in October. The old marled space more lightly 
covered, so as to make the whole nearly equal. 

1 824. The wheat much improved. 
1825 and 1826, at rest. 

1827. Corn. 

1828. In wheat, and sown in clover. 

1829. The crop of clover was heavier than any I had ever seen in this 
part of the country, except in some very rare cases of rich natural soil, 
where gypsum was used and acted well. The growth was thick, but 
unequal in height, (owing probably to unequal spreading of the marl,) 
standing from fifteen to twenty-four inches high. The first growth was 
mowed for hay, and the second left to manure the land. 

1830. The clover not mowed. Fallowed in August, and sowed wheat 
in October, after a second ploughing. 

1831. The wheat was excellent, almost heavy enough to be in danger of 
lodging. I supposed the product to be certainly twenty bushels, perhaps 
twenty-five, to the acre. 

As it had not been designed to make any experiment on this land, the 
progress of improvement was not observed with much care. But what- 
ever were the intermediate steps, it is certain that the land, at first, was as 
poor as that forming the subjects of the two preceding experiments in the 
unimproved state, (the measured products of which have been given,) and 
that its last crop was at least four times as great as could have Deen ob- 
tained, if marl had not been applied. The peculiar fitness of this kind of 
soil for clover after marling, and the supposed cause of the remarkable 
heavy first crop of clover, will require further remarks, and will be again 
referred to hereafter. 



g2 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES ON ACID SOILS REDUCED BY CULTIVATION. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

My use of marl has been more extensive on impoverished acid 
soils than on all other kinds, and has never failed to produce striking im- 
provement. Yet it has unfortunately happened that the two experiments 
made on such land with most care, and on which I relied mainly for evi- 
dence of the durable and increasing benefit from this manure, have had 
their effects almost destroyed by the applications having been made too 
heavy. These experiments, like the 4th and 6th, already reported, were 
designed to remain without any subsequent alteration, so that the measure- 
ment of their products, once in every succeeding rotation, might exhibit 
the progress of improvement under all the different circumstances. As 
no danger was then feared from such a course, marl was applied heavily, 
that no future addition might be required ; and for this reason, I have to 
report my greatest disappointments exactly in those cases where the most 
evident success and increasing benefits had been expected. However, 
these failures will be stated fairly, and as fully as the most successful re- 
sults ; and they may at least serve to warn from the danger of error, if 
not to show the greatest profits of judicious marling. 

It should be observed that the general rotation of crops pursued on the 
farm, on all land not recently cleared, was that of four shifts, (corn, wheat, 
and then the land two years at rest and not grazed,) though some excep- 
tions to this course may be remarked in some of the experiments to be stated. 

Experiment 8. 

Of a poor sandy acid loam, seven acres were marled at the rate of only 
ninety bushels (37 per cent.) to the acre ; laid on and spread early in 1819. 

Results, 1819. In corn — the benefit too small to be generally perceptible, 
but could be plainly distinguished along part of the outline, by comparing 
with the part not marled. 

1820. Wheat — the effect something better— and continued to be visible 
on the weeds following, until the whole was more heavily marled in 1823. 

Experiment 9. 

In the same field, on soil as poor and more sandy than the last described, 
four acres were marled at one hundred and eighty bushels, (37 per cent.) 
March 1818. A part of the same was also covered heavily with rotted barn- 
yard manure, which also extended through similar land not marled. This 
furnished for observation, land marled only — manured only — marled and 
manured — and some without either. The whole space, and more adjoin- 
ing, had been heavily manured five or six years before by summer cow- 
pens, and stable litter— of which no appearance remained after two years. 

Results, 1819. In corn. The improvement from marl very evident— but 
not to be distinguished on the part covered also by manure, the effect of 
the latter so far exceeding that of the marl as to conceal it. 

1820. In wheat. In 1821 and 1822, at rest. 

1823. In corn— 5£ by 3£ feet. The following measurements were made 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



83 



on adjoining spaces on October 10th. The shape of the ground did not 
admit of larger pieces, equal in all respects, being measured, as no com- 
parison of products had been contemplated at first, otherwise than by 
the eye. 

From the part not marled, 414 corn-hills made 75 quarts— 

or per acre, 

Marled only, 414 100 

Manured only, 490 - - - - 105 ( 

Marled and manured, 490 - - - 130 

The growth on the part both marled and manured was evidently inferior 
to that of 1819. This was to be expected, as the small quantity of cal- 
careous earth was not enough to fix half so much putrescent manure; and, 
of course, the excess was as liable to waste as if no marl had been used. 



Bush 


. Quarts. 


13 


26 


18 


12 


15 


5 


20 


20 



Experiment 10. 

Twenty acres of sandy loam, on a sandy sub-soil, covered in 1819 with 
marl of about 30 per cent, average proportion of calcareous earth, and the 
balance silicious sand— at 800 bushels to the acre. This land had been 
long cleared, and much exhausted by cultivation ; since 1814 not grazed, 
and had been in corn only once in four years ; and, as it was not worth 
sowing in wheat, had three years in each rotation to rest and improve by 
receiving all its scanty growth of weeds. The same course has been con- 
tinued from 1819 to 1832, except that wheat has regularly followed the crops 
of corn, leaving two years of rest in four. This soil was lighter than the 
subject of any preceding experiment, except the 9th. On a high level 
part, surrounded by land apparently equal, a square of about an acre (A) 
was staked off, and left without marl— which that year's work brought 
to two sides of the square (C, D and E.) 




§4 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

Results, 1820. In corn. October 13th, three half acres of marled land 
were measured, and as many on that not marled, and close adjoining, and 
produced as follows : 



Not marled. 




Marled. 






Bush. 


Pecks. 




Bush. 


Pecks. 


Half acre in A, 7 


1 


adjoining in C, 


12 


3 


The same in A, 7 


1 


" D, 


13 


31 


Half acre in B, 7 


2 1 


" E, 


15 


0i 



The average increase being 12| bushels of grain to the acre, nearly 100 
per cent, as measured, and more than 100 if the defective filling, and less 
matured state of the corn not marled, be considered. The whole would 
have lost more by shrinkage than is usual from equal products. 

1821. The whole in wheat; much hurt by the wetness of the season. 
The marled part more than twice as good as that left out. 

1822 and 1823. At rest. A good cover of carrot weeds and other kinds 
had succeeded the former growth of poverty grass and sorrel, and every 
appearance promised additional increase to the next cultivated crop. No- 
vember, 1823, when the next ploughing was commenced, the soil was found 
to be evidently deeper, of a darker color and firmer, yet more friable. 
The two-horse ploughs with difficulty (increased by the cover of weeds,) 
could cut the required depth of five inches, and the slice crumbled as it 
fell from the mould-board. But as the furrows passed into the part not 
marled, an immediate change was seen, and even felt by the ploughman, 
as the cutting was so much more easy, that care was necessary to pre- 
vent the plough running too deep— and the slices turned over in flakes, 
smooth and sleek from the mould board, like land too wet for ploughing, 
which however was not the case. The marling of the field was completed 
at the same rate, (800 bushels,) which closed a third side (B) of the marked 
square. The fourth side was my neighbor's field. 

1 824. In corn. The newly marled (on B) showed as early and as great bene- 
fit as was found in 1820 on C and D— but yet was very inferior to the old, 
until the latter was 10 or 12 inches high, when it began to give the first 
known evidence of the very injurious effects of using this manure too 
heavily. The disease thus produced became worse and worse, until many 
of the plants had been killed, and still more were so stunted as to leave no 
hope of their being otherwise than barren. The effects will be known 
from the measurements which were made as nearly as could be on the 
same ground as the corresponding marks in 1820, and will be exhibited in 
the table, together with the products of the succeeding rotations. Besides the 
general injury suffered here in 1824, there were one hundred and three 
corn hills in one of the measured quarter acres (in C,) or more than one- 
sixth, entirely barren, and eighty-nine corn hills in another quarter acre 
(D.) In counting these, none of the missing hills were included, as these 
plants might have perished from other causes. This unlooked for disaster 
diminished the previous increase gained by marling, by nearly one-half; 
and the damage has since been still greater, at each successive return of 
cultivation until some years after 1832. 

Just before planting the crops of 1832, straw and chaff very imperfectly 
rotted by exposure, and which contained.no admixture of animal manure, 
were applied at the rate of 800 bushels the acre to half the square without 
marl (A, 1) and to the adjacent parts of the marled land. The vege- 
table manure showed but slight benefit, until after all the worst effects of 
excessive marling had been produced ; and the later operation of the ma- 
nure served barely to prevent a still farther diminution being exhibited by 
the land injured by marl. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



85 



DESCRIPTION. 



PRODUCT IN SHELLED CORN l'ER ACHE. 



1st. course 2d course 
IS20. 1824. 

Oct. 13. ! October 16. 



Not marled 

After manuring;, 

[Not marled until 1823, 

Marled in 1819 — manured 
i with chaff', &c. in 1832. 



Bush. pk.Rush. pecks. 



14 


2 


15 


1 


(2.3 




2 27 


81 


^30 


1 



n; 



i 



28 

19 2 
20 
not measured 



3d course 4th course 

1828. 1832, 

October 13. October 19. 



Bush, pecks. Bush, pecks. 

11 SJ 9 3 

16 3 

19 2 not measured 

15 18 

19 19 .J 

not measured. Hot measured 



The crops of wheat were throughout less injured by the excess of marl 
than the corn. • 

For the crop of 1828, ploughed with three mules to each plough, from 
six to seven inches deep — seldom turning up any subsoil, (which was for- 
merly within three inches of the surface,) and the soil appearing still darker 
and richer than when preparing for the crops of 1824. The ploughing 
of the square not marled (A) no where exceeded six inches ; yet that depth 
must have injured the land, as I can impute to no other cause the remarka- 
ble diminution of product, through four courses of the mild four-shift rota- 
tion. It was evident that a still greater depth of furrow was not hurtful to 
the marled land. A strip across the field, in another place, was in 1828 
ploughed eight inches deep for experiment, by the side of another of four 
inches, and the corn on the deepest ploughing was the best. Another strip 
was trench-ploughed twelve inches deep, without showing any perceptible 
.difference, either of product or in the effects of damage from the excess 
of marl. 

This square left without marl was the land previously referred to (page 
27) as showing a diminished product through three successive courses of the 
rotation recommended by the author of 'Arator' as enriching. Since, 
another crop has been made and measured, and found to be still smaller 
than any previous. To whatever cause this continued falling off, for 16 
years, may be attributed, it is at least a remarkable contradiction to the 
doctrine of vegetable matter serving alone to make poor land rich. 

Much trouble has been encountered in attending to this experiment, and 
much loss of product submitted to, since its commencement, for the pur- 
pose of knowing the progress and extent of the evil caused by the excess 
of marl. But another portion of the field, marled as heavily in 1824, and 
Where equal damage was expected to ensue, has been entirely relieved by 
intermitting the corn crop of 1828, sowing clover, which (by manuring 
with gypseous earth, or green-sand earth, at 20 bushels to the acre,) pro- 
duced well, and which was left to fall and rot on the land. The next growth 
of corn on this part of the field (1832) was free from disease, and though 
irregular, seemed to the eye to amount to full twenty-five bushels to the acre. 

After 1830, the rotation and management of this field ceased to be re- 
gular or uniform, as previously; and also, by cross ploughing!, &C;, during 
so many years, marl had necessarily become slightly diffused over the space 
designed to remain without marl. Therefore no more measurements were 
made, as they could no longer be relied on for accurate comparison. The 
unmarled part, even with its slight accidental gain of marl from the sur- 
rounding ground, and half the piece having also been dressed with putrer- 
cent manure in 1832, (as stated above,) is but very little improved 
since 1820. 

M 



86 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



Experiment 11. 

The ground on which this experiment was made was in the midst of 
nineteen or twenty acres of soil apparently similar in all respects— level, 
gray sandy loam, cleared about thirty years before, and reduced as low by 
cultivation as such soil could well be. The land that was marled and mea- 
sured was about two hundred yards distant from experiment 2, and both 
places are supposed to have been originally similar in all respects. This 
land had not been cultivated since 1815, when it was in corn— but had been 
once ploughed since, in November, 1817, which had prevented broom grass 
from taking possession. The ploughing then was four inches deep, and 
in five and a half feet beds, as recommended in ' Arator.' The growth in 
the year 1820 presented little except poverty grass, (Aristida gracilis,) 
running blackberry briers, and sorrel — and the land seemed very little if at 
all improved by its five successive years of rest. A small part of this land 
was covered with calcareous sand, (20 per cent.,) quantity not observed 
particularly, but probably about 600 bushels. 




Results. 1821. Ploughed level, and planted in corn— distance 5£ by 3 1 
feet. The measurement of spaces nearly adjoining, made in October, was 
as follows : 
23 by 25 corn hills, not marled, (in A) made 2£ bushels, or ) 

per acre, 8f V very nearly. 

23 by 25 corn hills, marled, (on the side B) 5f 22£ ) 

1822. At rest. Marled the whole, except a marked square of fifty yards, 
containing the space measured the preceding year. Marl 45 per cent, and 
finely divided — 350 bushels to the acre — from the same bed as that used 
for experiment 4. In August, ploughed the land, and sowed wheat early 
in October. 

1823. Much injury sustained by the wheat from Hessian fly, and the 
growth was not only mean, but very irregular; but it was supposed that 
the first marled place (on the side B) was from 50 to 100 per cent, better 
than the last marled, and the last superior to the included square not marl- 
ed, (A) in as great a proportion. 

1824. Again in corn. The effects of disease from marling were as in- 
jurious here, both on the new and old part, as those described in experi- 
ment 10. No measurement of products made, owing to my being from 
home when the corn was cut down for sowing wheat. 

1825. The injury from disease less on the wheat than on the corn of 
the last year on the latest marling, and none perceptible on the oldest appli- 
cation. This scourging rotation of three grain crops in four years was 
particularly improper on marled land, and the more so on account of its 
poverty. 

1826. White clover had been sown thickly over forty-five acres, in- 
cluding this part, on the wheat, in January, 1825. In the spring of 1826, 



CALCAREOI S MANURES— PRACTUT. 



87 



it formed a beautiful green though low cover to even the poorest of the 
marled land. Marked spots, which were so diseased by over-marling as 
not to produce a grain of corn or wheat, produced clover at lea^t as good 
as other places not injured by that cause. The square, which hail been 
sown in the same manner, and on which the plants came up well, had 
no clover remaining by April, 1826,except on a few small spots, all of which 
together would not have made three feet square. The piece nut marled, 
white with poverty grass, might be seen, and its outlines traced, at some 
distance, by its strong contrast with the surrounding dark weeds in winter, 
or the verdant turf of white clover the spring before. 

1827. Still at rest. No grazing allowed on the white clover. 

1828. In corn— the land broken in January, five inches deep. October 
14th, made the following measurements: 

In the square not marled, (A) 105 by lO-U feet (thirty-six square yards 
more than a quarter of an acre,) made one barrel of ears- 
Bushels, pecks. 
Or of grain to the acre, 9 1$ 

The same in 1821, 8 4 



Gain, 1 



0; 



Old marling (in B)— 105 by 104! feet— 2^ barrels, 

The same in 1821, 



22 
22 



2 

0£ 



Gain, 1| 

New marling, 105 by 104^ feet, on the side that seemed to be the most 
diseased, (D) lj barrels — or nearly 12 bushels to the acre. 

1832. Again in corn. Since 1826, the mild four-shift rotation had been 
regularly adhered to. Ploughed early in winter five inches deep, and again 
with two-horse ploughs just before planting, and after manuring the land 
above the dotted line D x. The manure was from the stable yard, the 
vegetable part of it composed of straw, corn-stalks, corn-cobs, and leaves 
raked from wood-land, had been heaped in a wet state a short time before, 
and was still hot from its fermentation when carrying to the field. It was 
then about half rotted. The rate at which it was applied was about 807 
heaped bushels to the acre, which was too heavy for the best net profit. 
The corn on the oldest marling (B) showed scarcely a trace of remaining 
damage, while that on D 2 (not manured) was again much injured. On the 
manured part, D l,and C, the symptoms of disease began also to show 
early — but were so soon checked by the operation of the putrescent ma- 
nure, that very little (if any) loss could have been sustained from that cause. 
The following table exhibits all the measured products for comparison : 



PRODUCT IN GRAIN, PER ACRE. 



A 

A 1 
C 

B 

» } 

DM 



DESCRIPTION. 



1st course | 

i 1321. j 

Oct. — 



2d course 
1S24. 



f Not marled, 

( Not marled &. manured in 1832 $ I 

Marled in 1822, and manured in 

1832. 
Marled in 1S21 (liehtly) 22 

Marled in 1822 (more heavily) 
The same — and manured in 1832 



Bush. pk. 
8 1$ 



<U 



|3d course|4th course 
I 182S. 1832. 
Oct. 14. Oct. 20. 



None measured, 'Bush, pk Bush, pk 

but the product! 9 If 9 2£ 

of B much re-jthe same) 23 3 
duced by excess! 

of marl, and D| 31 11 

&. C equally in- 22 2 ' 25 

ured from thi 17 ~, ) 

same cause. |the .same 31 :j }' 



gQ CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

The products of the spaces A and B, in 1828, were not only estimated as 
usual from the measurement of the corn in ears, (which estimated quanti- 
ties are those in the table,) but they were also shelled on the day when 
gathered, and the grain then measured, and again some months after, when 
it had become thoroughly dry. Care was taken that there should be no 
waste of the corn, or other cause of inaccuracy. The result showed nearly 
double the loss from shrinking in the corn not marled, and of course a pro- 
portional greater comparative increase of product in that marled, besides the 
increase which appears from the early measurement exhibited in the table. 
The grain of A, not marled, when first shelled, measured a very little more 
than the quantity fixed by estimate — made as usual by measurement of 
the ears, and lost by shrinking 30 per cent. The marled grain, from B, 
measured at first above 4 per cent, more than the estimate, and after 
shrinking, fell below it so much as to show the loss to be 16 per cent. 
The loss from shrinking in this case was greater than usual in both, 
from the poverty and consequent backwardness of the part not marled, 
and the uncommonly large proportion of replanted and of course late 
corn on the whole. 

The two last experiments, as well as the 4th, were especially designed to 
test the amount of increased product to be obtained from marling, and to 
show the regular addition to the first increase, which the theory promised 
at each renewal of tillage. As to the main objects, all the three experi- 
ments have proved failures — and from the same error, that of marling too 
heavily. Although for this reason, the results have shown so much of the in- 
jurious effects, still, taken altogether, the experiments prove, clearly, not 
only the great immediate benefit of applying marl, but also its continued 
„and increasing good effects when applied in proper quantities. 

Experiment 12. 

On 9 acres of sandy loam, marled in 1819 at 400 bushels, (25 per cent.,) 
nearly an acre was manured during the same summer, by penning cattle. 
With the expectation of preserving the manure, double the quantity of 
marl, or 800 bushels in all, was laid on that part. The field in corn in 
1820 -in wheat, 1821— and at rest 1822 and 1823. 

Results, 1824. In corn, the second rotation after marling. The effects 
of the dung have not much diminished, and that part shows no damage from 
the quantity of marl, though the surrounding corn, marled only half as 
thickly, gave signs of general, though very slight injury from that cause. 

Experiment 13. 

Nearly two acres of loamy sand were covered with barn-yard manure 
and marl, (45 per cent.,) at the same time, in the spring of 1822, and the field 
put in corn the same year, followed by wheat. The quantity of marl not re- 
membered- but it must have been heavy (say not less than six hundred 
bushels to the acre) as it was put on to fix and retain the manure, and I 
had then no fear of damage from heavy dressings. 

Remit, 1825. Again in corn-and except on a small spot of sand almost 
pure, (nearly a " blowing sand," or liable to be drifted by high winds in dry 
weather,) no signs of disease from over-marling were seen, then or after- 
wards. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE Q9 

CHAPTER V. 

EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES ON "FREE LICHT LAND." 

Proposition 5— continued. 

The soil known in this part of the country- by the name of " free light 
land" has so peculiar a character that it deserves a particular notice. It 
belongs to the slopes and undulating lands, between the highest ridges and 
the water courses, but has nothing of the durability which slopes of medium 
fertility sometimes possess. In its wood-land state it would be called rich, 
and may remain productive for a few crops after being cleared ; but it is ra- 
pidly exhausted, and, when poor, seems as unimprovable by vegetable ma- 
nures as the poorest ridge lands. In its virgin state, this soil might be sup- 
posed to deserve the name of neutral ; but its productive power is so fleeting, 
and acid growths and qualities so surely follow its exhaustion, that it must 
be inferred that it is truly an acid soil. 

Experiment 14. 

The subject of this experiment presents soil of this kind with its pecu- 
liar characters unusually well marked. It is a loamy sandy soil, (the sand 
coarse,) on a similar sub-soil of considerable depth. The surface waving, 
almost hilly in some parts. . The original growth principally red-oak, 
hickory, and dogwood, not many pines, and very little whortleberry. Cut 
down in 1816 and put in corn the next year. The crop was supposed to 
be twenty-five bushels to the acre. Wheat succeeded, and was still a bet- 
ter crop for so sandy a soil ; making twelve to fifteen bushels, as it appear- 
ed standing. After 18 months of rest, and not grazed, the next corn crop, 
of 1820, was evidently and considerably inferior to the first; and the wheat 
of 1821 (which however was a very bad crop, from too wet a season) could 
not have been more than five bushels to the acre. In January, 1820, a 
piece of 1 i acres was limed, at 1 00 bushels the acre. The lime, being 
caught by rain before it was spread, formed small lumps of mortar on the 
land, and produced no benefit on the corn of that year, but could be seen 
slightly in the wheat of 1821. The land again at rest in 1822 and '23, 
when it was marled, at 600 bushels, (37 per cent.,) without omitting the 
limed piece— and all sowed in wheat that fall. In 1824, the wheat was 
found to be improved by the marl, but neither that, nor the next crop of 1828, 
was equal to its earliest product of wheat. The limed part showed injury 
in 1824, from the quantity of manure, but none since. The field was now 
under the regular four-shift rotation, and continued to recover; but did 
not surpass its first crop until 1831, when it brought rather more than 
thirty bushels of corn to the acre (estimated by the eye,)— being five or six 
bushels more than its supposed first crop. 

Experiment 15. 

Adjoining this piece, six acres of similar soil were grubbed and belted in 
August, 1826— marl at 600 to 700 bushels (37 per cent.) spread just before. 
But few of the trees died until the summer of 1 827. In 1828, planted in corn ; 
the crop did not appear heavier than would have been expected if no marl 
had been applied— but no part had been left without, for comparison. 
1829, wheat. 1830, at rest. 1831, in corn, and the product supposed to 
be near or quite thirty-five bushels, or an increase of thirty-five or forty 



90 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

per cent, on the first crop. No measurement was made — but the product 
was estimated by comparison with an adjacent piece, which measured 
thirty-one bushels, and which seemed to be inferior to this piece. 

The operation of marl on this kind of soil seems to add to the previous 
product very slowly, compared with other soils; but it is not the less 
effectual and profitable in fixing and retaining the vegetable matter accu- 
mulated by nature, which otherwise would be quickly dissipated by cul- 
tivation, and lost for ever. 

The remarkable sandy and open texture of the soil on which the last two 
experiments were tried, will be evident from the following statement of the 
quantity and coarseness of the silicious sand contained. 
J 000 grains of this soil, taken in 1826 from the part that had been both 

limed and marled, was found to consist of 
8 1 1 of silicious sand moderately coarse, mixed with a few grains of 

coarse shelly matter (the remains of the marl.) 
158 finely divided earthy matter, part silicious, as well as aluminous, &c. 
31 loss. 

At the same time, from the edge of the adjoining wood-land which formed 
the next described experiment, 15, and which had not then been marled, a 
specimen of soil was taken from between the depths of one and three inches 
— and found to consist of the following proportions. This spot was believed 
to be rather lighter than the other in its natural state. 
865 grains of silicious sand, principally coarse, 
107 finely divided earthy matter (partly silicious,) &c. 

28 loss. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES ON EXHAUSTED ACID SOILS, UNDER THEIR 
SECOND GROWTH OF TREES. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

Not having owned much land under a second growth of pines, I can only 
refer to two experiments of this kind. The improvement in both these 
cases has been so remarkable, as to induce the belief that the " old fields" to 
be found on every farm, which have been exhausted and turned out of 
cultivation thirty or forty years, offer the most profitable subjects for the 
application of calcareous manures. 

Experiment 16. 

May 1826. Marled about eight acres of land under its second growth, 
by opening paths for the carts ten yards apart. Marl 40 per cent. ; put 500 
to 600 bushels to the acre— and spread in the course of the summer. In 
August, belted slightly all the pines that were as much as eight inches 
through, and cut down or grubbed the smaller growth, of which there was 
very little. The pines (which were the only trees) stood thick, and were 
mostly from eight to twelve inches in diameter — eighteen inches where 
standing thin. The land joined experiment 15 on one side; but this is 
level, and on the other side joins ridge woodland, which soon becomes like 
soil of experiment 1. This piece, in its virgin state, was probably of a 
nature between those two soils — but less like the ridge soil than the " free 
light land." No information has been obtained as to the state of this land 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 9 J 

when its cultivation was formerly abandoned. The soil, (that is, the depth 
Which has since been turned by the plough,) a whitish loamy sand, on a 
subsoil of the same; in fact, all was subsoil before the ploughing, except 
half an inch or three quarters, on the tup, which was principally composed 
of rotted pine leaves. Above this thin layer were the later dropped and 
un rotted leaves, lying loosely several inches thick. 

The pines showed no symptoms of being killed, until the autumn of 1827, 
when their leaves began to have a tinge of yellow. To suit the cultivation 
with the surrounding land, this piece was laid down in wheat for its first 
crop, in October, 1827. For this purpose, the few logs, the boughs, and 
grubbed bushes were heaped, but not burnt — the seed then sowed on the coat 
of pine leaves, and ploughed in by two-horse ploughs, in as slovenly a 
manner as may be supposed from the condition of the land; and a wooden- 
tooth harrow then passed over, to pull down the heaps of leaves, and 
roughest furrows. 

Results. The wheat was thin, but otherwise looked well while young. 
The surface was very soon again covered by the leaves dropping from the then 
dying trees. On April 2d, 1828, most of the trees were nearly dead, though 
but few of them entirely. The wheat was then taller than any in my crop 
— and when ripe, was a surprising growth for such land, and such imper- 
fect tillage. 

1829 and 1830. At rest. Late in the spring of 1830 an accidental fire 
passed over the land— but the then growing vegetation prevented all of the 
older cover being burnt, though some was destroyed every where. 

1831. In corn. The growth excited the admiration of all who saw it, 
and no one estimated the product so low as it actually proved to be. A 
square of four (two-pole) chains, or four-tenths of an acre, measured on 
November 25th, yielded at the rate of thirty-one and three-eighths bushels 
of grain to the acre. 

Experiment 17. 

in a field of acid sandy loam, long under the usual cultivation, a piece 
of five or six acres was covered by a second growth of pines thirty-nine 
years old, as supposed from that number of rings being counted on some of 
the stumps. The largest trees were eighteen or twenty inches through. 
This ground was altogether on the side of a slope, steep enough to lose soil 
by washing, and more than one old shallow gully remained to confirm the 
belief of the injury that had been formerly sustained from that cause. 
These circumstances, added to all the surrounding land having been conti- 
nued under cultivation, made it evident that this piece had been turned out 
of cultivation because greatly injured by tillage. It was again cut down in 
the winter of 1824-5. Many of the trees furnished fence-rails and fuel, and 
the remaining bodies were heaped and burnt some months after, as well as 
the large brush. In August it was marled, supposed at 600 bushels, (37 per 
cent.,) twice coultered in August and September, and sowed in wheat— the 
seed covered by trowel ploughs. The leaves and much of the smaller 
brush left on the ground, made the ploughing troublesome and imperfect. 
The crop (1826) was remarkably good— and still better were the crops of 
corn and wheat in the ensuing rotation, after two years of rest. On the 
last crop of wheat (1830) clover was sown— and mowed for hay in 1831. 
The growth stood about eighteen inches high, and never have I seen so 
heavy a crop on sandy and acid soil, even from the heaviest dunging, the 
utmost care, and the most favorable season. The clover grew well in the 
bottoms of the old gullies, which were still plainly to be seen, and which no 



92 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

means had been used to improve, except such as all the land had received. 
Within two feet of the surface the subsoil of this land is of red clay, which 
probably helped its growth of clover. 



CHAPTER Vlt. 

EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES ALONE, OR WITH GYPSUM, ON NEUTRAL SOILS. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

Reason would teach that applications of calcareous earth alone to calca- 
reous soils are so manifestly useless, that no more than two experiments of 
that kind have been made by me, neither of which had any improving 
effect that could be noticed, in the twelve ensuing years during which the 
experiments were observed. 

When calcareous manures have been applied to neutral soils, whether 
new or worn, no perceptible and manifest benefit has been obtained on the 
first crop. The subsequent improvement has gradually increased, as would 
be expected from the power of fixing manures ascribed to calcareous 
earth. But however satisfactory these general results were to myself, they 
are not such as could be reported in detail, with any advantage to other 
persons. It is sufficiently difficult to make fair and accurate experiments 
where early and remarkable results are expected. But no cultivator of a 
farm can bestow enough care, and patient observation, to obtain true results 
from experiments that scarcely will show their first feeble effects in several 
years after the commencement. On a mere experimental farm, such things 
may be possible ; but not where the main object of the fanner is profit 
from his general and varied operations. The effects of changes of season, 
of crops, of the mode of tillage— the auxiliary effects of other manures, and 
many other circumstances —would serve to defeat any observations of the 
progress of a slow improvement, though the ultimate result of the general 
practice might be abundantly evident. 

Another cause for being unable to state with any precision the practical 
benefit of marling neutral soils, arises from the circumstance that nearly all 
the calcareous manure thus applied by me has been accompanied by a natu- 
ral admixture of gypsum ; and though I feel confident in ascribing some effects 
to one, and some to the other of these two kinds of manure, yet this divi- 
sion of operation must rest merely on opinion, and cannot be received as 
certain by any other than him who makes and carefully observes the ex- 
periments. Some of these applications will be described, that other per- 
sons may draw their own conclusions from them. 

The cause of these manures being applied in conjunction was this. A 
singular bed of marl lying under Coggins Point, and the only one within 
a convenient distance to most of the neutral soil of that farm, contains a 
very small proportion (perhaps about one per cent.) of gypsum, scattered 
irregularly through the mass, seldom visible, though sometimes and very 
rarely to be met with in small crystals. The calcareous ingredient on a 
general average, carefully made, was found to be 62 per cent.^ If this 
manure had been used before its gypseous quality was discovered, all its 
effects would have been ascribed to calcareous earth alone, and the most 
erroneous opinions might thence have been formed of its mode of operation. 

What led me to suspect the presence of gypsum, in this bed of fossil 
shells, was the circumstance that throughout its whole extent, of near a mile 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



93 



along the river bank, this bed lies on another earth, of peculiar character 
and appearance, and which, in many places, exhibits gypsum in crystals of 
various sizes. This earth has evidently once been a bed of fossil shells, 
like what still remains above ; but nothing now is left of the shells, except 
numerous impressions of their forms. Not the smallest proportion of cal- 
careous earth can be found, and the gypsum into which it must have been 
changed (by meeting with sulphuric acid, or sulphuret of iron,) has also 
disappeared in most places ; and in others, it remains only in small quantities 
— say from the smallest perceptible proportion, to fifteen or twenty per 
cent, of the mixed mass. Jn some rare cases, this gypseous earth is suffi- 
ciently abundant to be used profitably as manure, as has been done, by 
Mr. Thomas Cocke, of Tarbay, as well as myself. It is found in the great- 
est quantity, and also the richest in gypsum, at Evergreen, two miles be- 
low City Point. There the gypsum frequently forms large crystals of va- 
ried and beautiful forms. The distance that this bed of gypseous earth 
extends is about seven miles, interrupted only by some bodies of lower 
land, apparently of a more recent formation by alluvion. 

In the bed of gypseous marl above described, there are regular layers of 
a calcareous rock, which was too hard to use profitably for manure, and 
which caused the greatest impediment to obtaining the softer part. This 
rock contains between eighty-five and ninety per cent, of pure calcareous 
earth, besides a little gypsum and iron. It makes excellent lime for cement, 
mixed with twice its bulk of sand, and has been used for part of the brick- 
work, and all the plastering of my present dwelling house, and for several 
of my neighbors' houses. The whole body of marl also contains a minute 
proportion of some soluble salts, which possibly may have some influence 
on the operation of the substance, as manure or cement. 

Thus, from the examination of a single body of marl, there have been 
obtained not only a rich calcareous manure, but also gypsum, and a valu- 
able cement. Similar formations may perhaps be abundant elsewhere, and 
their value unsuspected, and likely to remain useless. This particular body 
of marl has no outward appearance of possessing even its calcareous cha- 
racter. It would be considered, on slight inspection, as a mass of gritty 
clay, of no worth whatever. 

The last preceding paragraphs present, as in the previous editions, my 
earliest views of this particular bed of marl. Further information has 
taught that it is of the eocene, or more ancient formation; and that the un- 
derlying stratum, (which is usually not at all calcareous.) which I formerly 
named and treated of as " gypseous earth," is what geologists call " green- 
sand," a term still less descriptive, and not at all more accurate. A full 
account of both of these bodies will be given in the Appendix. 

This gypseous marl has been used only on sixty acres, most of which 
was neutral soil, and generally, if not universally, with early as well as 
permanent benefits. The following experiments show results more striking 
than have been usually obtained ; but all agree in their general character. 

Experiment 18. 

1819. Across the shelly island numbered 3 in the examinations of soils, 
(page 38,) but where the land was less calcareous, a strip of three quarters 
of an acre was covered with muscle-shell marl, a deposite on parts of the 
river banks supposed to hare been made by the aboriginal inhabitants 
Touching this, through its whole length, another strip was covered with 
gypseous marl, 53 per cent., at the rate of 250 bushels. 

Results. 1819. In corn. No perceptible effect from the muscle shells. 
The gypseous marling considerably better than on either side of it. 

12 



94 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

1820. Wheat— less difference. 

1821. Grazed. Natural growth of white clover thickly set on the gyp- 
seous marling, much thinner on the muscle-shells, and still less of it where 
no marl had been applied. 

The whole field afterwards was put in wheat on summer fallow every 
second year, and grazed closely the intervening year— a course very unfavor- 
able for observing, or permitting to take place, any effects of gypsum. Nothing 
more was noted of this experiment until 1825, when cattle were not turned 
in until the clover reached its full size. The strip covered with gypseous 
marl showed a remarkable superiority over the other marled piece, as well 
as over the land which was still more calcareous by nature, and which had 
produced better in 1820. In several places, the white clover stood thickly a 
foot in height. 

Experiment 19. 

A strip of a quarter acre passing through rich black neutral loam, co- 
vered with gypseous marl at 250 bushels. 

Results. 1818. In corn. By July, the marled part seemed the best by 
50 per cent., but afterwards the other land gained on it, and little or no 
difference was apparent when the crop was matured. 

1819. Wheat — no difference seen. 

1820 and 1821. At rest. In the last summer the marled strip could 
again be easily traced, by the entire absence of sorrel, (which had been 
gradually increasing on this land since it had been secured from grazing,) 
and still more by its very luxuriant growth of bird-foot clover, which was 
thrice as good as that on the adjoining ground . 



Experiment 20. 

1822. On a body of neutral soil which had been reduced quite low, but 
was well manured in 1819 when last cultivated, gypseous marl was spread 
on nine acres, at the rate of 300 bushels. This terminated on one side at 
a strip of muscle-shell marl ten yards wide — its rate not remembered, but 
it was certainly thicker in proportion to the calcareous earth contained, than 
the other, which I always avoided laying on heavily, from a mistaken fear of 
causing injury by too much gypsum. The line of division between the two 
marls was through a clay loam. The subsoil was a retentive clay, which 
caused the rain water to keep the land very wet through the winter, and 
early part of spring. 

Results. 1822. In corn, followed by wheat in 1823 — not particularly no- 
ticed, but the benefits must have been very inconsiderable. All the muscle- 
shell marling, and four acres of the gypseous, sowed in red clover, which 
stood well, but was severely checked, and much of it killed, by a'drought 
in June, when the sheltering wheat was reaped. During the next winter 
(by neglect) my horses had frequent access to this piece, and by their tram- 
pling in its wet state must have injured both land and clover. From these 
disasters the clover recovered surprisingly; and in 1824, two mowings 
were obtained, which, though not heavy, were better than from any of my 
previous attempts to raise this grass. In 1825, the growth was still better, 
and yielded more to the scythe. This was the first time that I had seen 
clover worth mowing on the third year after sowing — and had never heard 
of its being comparable to the second year's growth any where in the 
lower country. The growth on the muscle-shell marling was very inferior 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 95 

to the other, and was not mowed at all the last year, being thin and low, 
and almost eaten out by wire-grass, (Cynodon dactylon.) 

1826. In corn — and it was remarkable that the difference shown the last 
year was reversed, the muscle-shell marling now having much the best 
crop. 

In these and other applications to neutral soils, I ascribe the earliest 
effects entirely to gypsum, as well as the peculiar benefit shown to clover, 
throughout. The later effects, and especially on grain, are due to the cal- 
careous earth in the manure. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DIGRESSION TO THE THEORY OF THE ACTION OF GYPSUM AS MANURE. SUPPOSED 
CAUSE OF ITS WANT OF POWER AND VALUE ON ACID SOILS. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

Another opinion was formed from the effects of gypseous marl, as stated 
in the foregoing chapter, which may lead to profits much more important 
than any to be derived from the limited use of this, or any similar mineral 
compound — viz. : that gypsum may he profitably used after calcareous ma- 
nures, on soils on which it was totally inefficient before. I do not present 
this as a fact fully established, or, even if established, of universal application ; 
for the results of some of my own experiments are directly in opposition. 
But, however it may be opposed by some facts, the greater weight of evi- 
dence, furnished by my experiments and observations, decidedly supports 
this opinion. If correct, its importance to our low country is inferior only 
to the value of calcareous manures alone — which value may be almost 
doubled, if the land is thereby fitted to receive the wonderful benefits of 
gypsum and clover. 

It is well known that gypsum has failed entirely as a manure on nearly 
all the land on which it has been tried in our tide-water district ; and we 
may learn from various publications, that as little general success has been 
met with along the Atlantic coast, as far north as Long Island. To account 
for this general failure of a manure so efficacious elsewhere, some one of- 
fered a reason, which was received without examination, and which is still 
considered by many as sufficient, viz. : that the influence of salt vapors de- 
stroyed the power of gypsum on and near the sea-coast. But the sa 
general worthlessness of that manure extends one hundred miles highei 
than the salt water of the rivers — and the lands where it is profitably used 
are much more exposed to sea air. Such are the rich neutral soils of 
Curie's Neck, Shirley, Berkley, Brandon, and Sandy Point, un James river, 
on all which gypsum on clover has been extensively and profitably used. 
On acid soils, 1 have never heard of enough benefit being obtained from 
gypsum to induce the cultivator to extend its use further than making a 
few small experiments. When any effect has been produced on an acid 
soil, (so far as Instructed by my own experience, or the information of 
others,) it has been caused by applying to small spaces comparatively lai 
quantities; and even then, the effects were neither considerable, durable, 
nor profitable. Such have been the results of many small experiments 
made on my own acid soils — and very rarely was the least* perceptible 
effect produced. Yet on some of the same soils, after marling, the most 
evident benefits have been obtained from gypsum on clover. The soils on 
which the 1st and 10th experiments were made, (at some distance from these 



gg CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

experiments,) had both been tried with gypsum, and at different rates of 
thickness, before marling, without the least effect. Several years after 
both had been marled, gypseous earth (from the bed referred to, page 93,) 
was spread at twenty bushels the acre, (which gave four bushels of 
pure gypsum,) on clover, and produced in some parts a growth I have 
never seen surpassed. It is proper to state that such results have been 
produced only by heavy dressings. Mr. Thomas Cocke, of Tarbay, 
in the spring of 1831 sowed nearly four tons of Nova Scotia gypsum on 
clover on marled land, the field being a continuation of the same ridge 
that my 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th experiments were made on, and very similar 
soil. His dressing, at a bushel to the acre, before the summer had passed, 
produced evident benefit, where it is absolutely certain, from abundant 
previous experience, that none could have been obtained before marling. 

On soils naturally calcareous, I have in some experiments greatly pro- 
moted the growth of corn by gypsum, and have doubled the growth of 
clover on my best land of that kind. When the marl containing gypsum 
was applied, benefit from that ingredient was almost certain to be obtained. 

All these facts, if presented alone, would seem to prove clearly the cor- 
rectness of the opinion, that the acidity of most of our soils caused the 
ineffieacy of gypsum, and that the application of calcareous earth, which will 
remove the acid, will also serve to bring gypsum into useful operation. But 
this most desirable conclusion is opposed by the results of other experi- 
ments, which, though fewer in number, are as strong as any of the facts 
that favor that conclusion. If the subject were properly investigated, those 
facts, apparently in opposition, might be explained so as no longer to con- 
tradict this opinion, or perhaps might help to confirm it. Good reasons, de- 
duced from established chemical truths, may be offered to explain why the 
acidity of our soils should prevent the operation of gypsum; though it 
may be deemed premature to attempt the explanation of any supposed fact, 
before every doubt of the existence of the fact itself has been first removed. 

One of the circumstances will be mentioned, which appears at first glance 
most strongly opposed to the opinion which has been advanced. On the 
poor acid clay soil, of such peculiar and base qualities, which forms the 
subject of the 5th, 6th, and 7th experiments, gypsum has been sufficiently 
tried, and has not produced the least benefit, either before marling, or after- 
wards. Yet the first growth of clover on this land after marling is fully 
equal to what might be expected from the best operation of gypsum. Now 
if it could be ascertained that a very small proportion of either sulphuric 
acid, or of the sulphate of iron, exists in this soil, it would completely ex- 
plain away this opposing fact, and even make it the strongest support of 
my position. The sulphate of iron has sometimes been found in arable 
soil,* and sulphuric acid has been detected in certain clays.f I have seen, 
o»i the same farm, a bed of clay of very similar appearance to this soil, 
which certainly had once contained one of these substances, as was proved 
by the formation of crystallized sulphate of lime, where the clay came in 
contact with a bed of marl. The sulphate of lime was found in the 
small fissures of the clay, extending sometimes one or two feet in perpen- 
dicular height from the calcareous earth below. Precisely the same chemi- 
cal change would take place in a soil containing sulphuric acid, or sulphate 
of iron, as soon as marl is applied. The sulphuric acid, (whether free 
or combined with iron) would immediately unite with the lime presented, 
and form gypsum, (sulphate of lime.) Proportions of these substances, too 
small perhaps to be detected by analysis, would be sufficient to form three 

' Agr. Chem p 141. f Kirwan on Manures. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 97 

or four bushels of gypsum to the acre- more than enough to produce the 
greatest known effect on clover — and to prevent any benefit being derived 
from a subsequent application of gypsum ; because there being already in 
the soil more gypsum than could act, no additional quantity could be of the 
slightest benefit. 

Since the publication of the foregoing part of this chapter, in the first 
edition, my use of gypsum, on land formerly acid, has been more extended, 
and the results have been such as to give additional confidence in the prac- 
tice, and, indeed, an assurance of good profit, on the average of such ap- 
plications. But still, as before, disappointments, either total or nearly so, in 
the effect of such applications, have sometimes occurred, and without there 
being any known or apparent cause to which to attribute such disappoint- 
ment in the results. 

In 1832, nine acres of the same body of ridge land above referred to, 
adjoining the piece on which the 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th experiments were 
made, and more lately cleared, were sown in clover in the early part of 
1831, on wheat. The next spring, French gypsum was sown at the rate 
of a bushel to the acre, except on four marked adjoining squares, each 
about one third of an acre, one of which was left without plaster, and the 
others received it at the several rates of 2, 3, and 4 bushels to the acre. 
The whole brought a middling crop, and was mowed- for hay, except the 
square left without gypsum, which did not produce more than half as much 
as the adjoining land where gypsum was applied at one bushel the acre. 
The products of the other pieces were slightly increased by each addition to 
the gypsum, but by no means in proportion to the increased quantity used ; 
nor was the effect of the four bushels near equal to that formerly obtained, 
in several cases, from 20 bushels of gypseous earth taken from the river 
bank. Hence it seems that it was not merely the unusual quantity of gyp- 
sum applied in this earth, which produced such remarkable benefit ; and 
we must infer that it contains some other quality or ingredient capable of 
giving additional improvement to clover. 

Since the first publication of the foregoing passage, (in 1832,) and in ac- 
cordance with the views there presented, more than 10 tons of good French 
gypsum has been used, in different years and with less effect, in general, 
than formerly, in the first few years after the marling. This general dimi- 
nution, and more frequent total failures, may be owing to the longer time 
that the land has been marled, and, by the increase of its vegetable sup- 
plies serving as putrescent manure, the land being thereby changed from 
calcareous to neutral, and perhaps in some cases even approaching to be- 
ing acid. If this supposition be well founded, then a repetition of the marl- 
ing would not only be profitable in 'other respects, but would increase or 
restore the capacity of the soil to receive benefit from gypsum. 

The following are my views of the general causes of the inertness and 
worthlessness of gypsum as manure, on all acid soils, and for the different 
and valuable results from gypsum, after the soils have been made calcareous. 
I do not pretend to explain the mode of operation by which gypsum pro- 
duces its almost magical benefits ; it would be equally hopeless and ridicu- 
lous for one having so little knowledge of the successful practice to at- 
tempt an explanation, in which so many good chemists and agriculturists, 
both scientific and practical, have completely failed. There is no operation 
of nature heretofore less understood, or of which the cause, or agent, 
seems so totally disproportioned to the effect, as the enormous increase of 
vegetable growth from a very small quantity of gypsum, in circumstances 
favorable to its action. All other known manures, whatever may be the 
nature of their action, require to be applied in quantities very far exceed- 



98 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

ing any bulk of crop expected from their use. But one bushel of gypsum 
spread over an acre of land fit for its action, may add more than twenty 
times its own weight to a single crop of clover hay. 

But without pretending to account for the wonderful action of gypsum 
as manure, and without entertaining any confidence in any of the nume- 
rous theories heretofore presented, (not excepting the latest set forth, by 
Professor Liebig,) I concur in the general opinion expressed by Davy. 
This accurate investigator, who took nothing upon trust which could be 
subjected to the test of rigid experiment, pursued that mode to obtain light 
on this obscure subject. He found by chemical analysis, that gypsum was 
always present in the ashes of red clover, and in quantity, in a good crop, 
amounting to three or four bushels to the acre. He inferred that gypsum, 
thus always forming a portion of the clover plant, was essential to its healthy 
existence— and that it is necessary to the structure of the woody fibre of 
clover and other grasses. But it is enough if Davy was correct in the 
main opinion, that a certain though very small proportion of gypsum is an 
essentia] component part of certain plants, of which the clover tribe fur- 
nishes the most noted examples. If this be so, no matter what may be the 
office or function of the gypsum, the small amount necessary for the de- 
mands of the plants must be present in the soil, or otherwise the plants need- 
ing it cannot live, or maintain a healthy growth. It will follow, further, 
that on soils well adapted for clover in other respects, but almost totally 
deficient in gypsum, the application of so small a dressing as one bushel 
of that substance to the acre may enable a full crop of clover to grow, and 
twice or thrice as much as the land could have brought without this small 
application. Such I suppose to be the circumstances of those lands of this 
country on which gypsum exerts the greatest power. But in England, 
-though clover culture is universally extended, gypsum has shown scarcely 
any benefit as manure, and though extensively experimented with, has not 
been found sufficiently operative to be brought into ordinary practice on any 
one farm in the kingdom. This may be accounted for by supposing the 
soils generally to be supplied by nature abundantly with gypsum, so that 
no more is required. Davy found gypsum in the soil itself of four farms, 
examined with this view, and in one of them the very large proportion of 
nearly one per cent. (See Agricultural Chemistry, Lecture vii.) But there 
is another and numerous class of cases in which gypsum cannot be sup- 
posed to be present, and yet when applied shows no benefit. These are 
the poor acid soils of lower Virginia, (and elsewhere,) and the cause of 
which it seems to me not difficult to explain. 

However wonderful and inscrutable the fertilizing power of this' manure 
may be, and admitting its cause as yet to be hidden, and entirely beyond 
our reach— still it is possible to show reasons why gypsum cannot act in 
many situations, where all experience has proved it to be worthless. If this 
only can be satisfactorily explained, it will remove much of the uncertainty 
as to the effects to be expected ; and the farmer may thence learn on which 
soils he may hope for benefit from this manure— on which it will certainly 
be thrown away— and by what means the circumstances adverse to its ac- 
tion may be removed, and its efficacy thereby secured. This is the expla- 
nation that I shall attempt. 

If the vegetable acid, which I suppose to exist in what I have called acid 
soils, is not the oxalic, (which is the particular acid in sorrel,) at least every 
vegetable acid, being composed of different proportions of the same three 
elements, may easily change to any other, and all to the oxalic acid. This, 
of all bodies known by chemists, has the strongest attraction for lime, and 
will take it from any other acid which was before combined with it, and for 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. ' 99 

that purpose, the oxalic acid will let go any other earth or metal, which 
it had before held in combination. Let us then observe what would be 
the effect of the known chemical action of these substances, on their meet- 
ing in soils. If oxalic acid were produced in any soil, its immediate effect 
would be to unite with its proper proportion of lime, if enough were in the 
soil in any combination whatever. If the lime were in such small quantity 
as to leave an excess of oxalic acid, that excess would seize on the other 
substances in the soil, in the order of their mutual attractive force; and 
one or more of such substances are always present, as magnesia ; or, more 
certainly, iron and alumina. The soil then would not only contain some 
proportion of the oxalate of lime, but also the oxalate of either one or more 
of the other substances named. Let us now suppose gypsum to be applied to 
this soil. This substance (sulphate of lime) is composed of sulphuric acid 
and lime. It is applied in a finely pulverized state, and in quantities from 
half a bushel to two bushels the acre— generally not more than one bushel. 
As soon as the earth is made wet enough for any chemical decomposition 
to take place, the oxalic acid must let go its base of iron, or alumina, and 
seize upon and combine with the lime that formed an ingredient of the 
gypsum. The sulphuric acid left free, will combine with the iron, or the 
alumina of the soil, forming copperas in the one case, and alum in the 
other. The gypsum no longer exists — and surely no more satisfactory 
reason can be given why no effect from it should follow. The decomposi- 
tion of the gypsum has served to form two or perhaps three other sub- 
stances. One of them, oxalate of lime, like all salts of lime, is probably valu- 
able as manure, but the very small quantity that could be formed out of one 
or even two bushels of gypsum, might have no more visible effect on a whole 
acre, than that small quantity of calcareous earth, or farm-yard manure. 
The other substance certainly formed, copperas, is known to be a poison 
to soil and to plants— and alum, of which the formation would be doubtful, 
I believe is also hurtful. In such small quantities, however, the poison 
would be as little perceptible as the manure — and no apparent effect what- 
ever could follow such an application of gypsum to an acid soil. So small 
a proportion of oxalic acid, or any oxalate other than of lime, would suffice 
to decompose and destroy the gypsum, that it would not amount to one 
part in twenty thousand of the soil. 

Why gypsum sometimes acts as a manure on acid soils, when applied in 
large quantities for the space, is equally well explained by the same theory. 
If a handful, or even a spoonful of gypsum is put on a space of six inches 
square, it would so much exceed in proportion all the oxalic acid that 
could speedily come in contact with it, that all would not be decomposed, 
and the part that continued to be gypsum would show its peculiar powers 
perhaps long enough to improve one crop. But as tillage served to scatter 
these little collections more equally over the whole space— or even as repeat- 
ed soaking rains allowed the extension of the attractive powers— applications 
like these would also be destroyed, after a very short-lived, limited, and 
rarely profitable action. 

Soils that are naturally calcareous cannot contain oxalic acid combined 
with any other base than lime. Hence, gypsum applied there continues 
to be gypsum— and exerts its great fertilizing power, as in the counties of 
Loudoun and Frederick. But even on these most suitable soils, this manure 
is said not to be certain and uniform in its effects, and of course more cer- 
tain results are not to be looked for with us. I have not undertaken to ex- 
plain its occasional failures any more than its general success, on the lands 
where it is profitably used in general— but only why it cannot act at all, on 
lands of a different kind. 



100 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE 

The same chemical action being supposed, explains why the power of 
profiting by gypsum should be immediately awakened on acid soils after 
making them calcareous— and why that manure should seldom fail, when 
applied mixed with much larger quantities of calcareous earth. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY TOO HEAVY DRESSINGS OF CALCAREOUS MANURE, AND THF. 

REMEDY. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

The injury or disease in grain crops produced by marling has so lately 
been presented to our notice, that the collection and comparison of many 
additional facts will be required before its cause can be satisfactorily ex- 
plained. But the facts already ascertained will at least show how to avoid 
the danger of such injury in future, and to find remedies for the evils al- 
ready inflicted by the injudicious use of calcareous manures. 

The earliest effect of this kind observed was in May, 1824, on the field 
containing experiment 10. The corn on the land marled four years before 
sprang up and grew with all the vigor and luxuriance that was expected 
from the appearance of increased fertility exhibited by the soil, as before 
described, (page 84.) About the 20th of May the change commenced, and 
the worst symptoms of the disease were seen by the 1 1th of June. From 
having as deep a color as young corn shows on the richest and best soils, 
-it became of a pale sickly green. The leaves, when closely examined, 
seemed almost transparent, afterwards were marked through their whole 
length by streaks of rusty red, separated very regularly by other streaks 
of what was then more of yellow than green, and next they began to shri- 
vel and die downwards from their extremities. The growth of many of 
the plants was nearly stopped. Still some few showed no sign of injury, 
and maintained the vigorous growth which they began with, so as by con- 
trast more strongly to mark the general loss sustained. The appearance of 
the field was such, that a stranger would have supposed that he saw the 
crop on a rich soil exposed to the worst ravages of some destructive kind 
of insects; but neither on the roots or stalks of the corn could any thing be 
found to support that opinion. Before the first of August this gloomy 
prospect had somewhat improved. Most of the plants seemed to have been 
relieved of the infliction, and to grow again with renewed vigor. But be- 
fore that time many were dead, and it was impossible that the others could 
so fully recover as to produce any thing approaching a full crop for the land. 
It has been shown in the report of the products of Exp. 10, what diminu- 
tion of crop was then sustained— and that the evil was not abated in the 
three succeeding courses of cultivation. Still, neither of the diseased 
measured pieces has fallen quite as low as its product before marling; 
nor do I think that such has been the result on any one acre together on 
my farm, though many smaller spots have been rendered incapable of 
yielding even so much as a grain of corn or wheat. 

The injury caused to wheat by marling is not so easy to describe, though 
abundantly evident to the observer. Its earliest growth, like that of corn, 
is not affected. About the time for heading, the plants most diseased ap- 
pear as if they were scorched, and when ripe will be found very deficient 
in grain. On very poor spots, from which nearly all the soil has been 
washed, sometimes fifty heads of wheat, taken together, would not furnish 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. jqj 

as many grains of wheat. This crop, however, suffers less than corn on 
the same land ; perhaps because its growth is nearly completed by the time 
that the warm season begins, to which the ill effects of calcareous manures 
seem confined. The injury to corn is also greater in a wet than a drier 
summer. 

When these unpleasant discoveries were first made, two hundred and 
fifty acres had already been marled so heavily that the same evil was to 
be expected to visit the whole. My labors, thus bestowed for years, had 
been greatly and unnecessarily increased— and the excess, worse than be- 
ing thrown away, had served to take away that increase of crop which 
lighter marling would have ensured. But though much and general injury 
was afterwards sustained from the previous work, yet it was lessened in 
extent and degree, and sometimes entirely avoided, by the remedial mea- 
sures which were adopted. My observation and comparison of all the 
facts presented, led to the following conclusions, and pointed out the course 
by which to avoid the recurrence of the evil, and the means to lessen or 
remove it, where it had already been inflicted. 

1st. No injury has been sustained on any soil of my farm by marling 
not more heavily than two hundred and fifty heaped bushels to the acre, 
with marl of strength not exceeding 40 per cent, of calcareous earth. 

2d. Dressings twice as heavy seldom produce damage to the first crop 
on any soil -and never even on the after crops on any calcareous, or good 
neutral soil— nor on any acid soil supplied plentifully with vegetable matter. 

3d. On acid soils marled too heavily, the injury is in proportion to the 
extent of one or all these circumstances of the soil— poverty, sandiness, 
and severe cropping and grazing, whether inflicted previously or subse- 
quently. 

4th. Clover, both red and white, will live and flourish on the spots most 
injured for grain crops by marling too heavily. Thus, in the case before 
cited of land adjacent to the pieces measured in experiment 10, and equally 
over-marled, very heavy red clover was raised in 1830, by adding gypseous 
earth, and which was succeeded by a good growth of corn, free from every 
mark of disease, in IS 32. 

5th. A good dressing of putrescent manure removes the disease com- 
pletely, (see Exp. 11, 12, 1 3.) All kinds of marl (or fossil shells) have some- 
times been injurious— but such effects have been more generally experi- 
enced from the dry yellow marl, than from the blue and wet. 

The inferences to be drawn from these facts are obvious. They direct 
us to avoid injury by applying marl lightly at first, and to be still more 
cautious according to the existence of the circumstances stated as increas- 
ing the tendency of marl to do harm. Next, if the over-dose has already 
been given, we should forbid grazing entirely, and furnish putrescent ma- 
nure as far as possible— or omit one or two grain crops, so as to allow more 
vegetable matter to be fixed in the land— apply putrescent manures— and 
sow clover as soon as circumstances permit. One or more of these reme- 
dies have been used on most of my too heavily marled land ; and with 
considerable, though not always with entire success, because the means for 
the cure could not always be furnished at once in sufficient abundance. 
Other persons, who permitted close grazing, and adopted a more scourging 
rotation of crops, have suffered more damage,from much lighter dressings of 
marl than those of mine which were injurious. 

But though the unlooked-for damage sustained from this cause produced 
much loss and disappointment, and has greatly retarded the progress of my 
improvements, it did not suspend my marling, nor abate my estimate of the 
value of the manure. If a cover of 500 or 600 bushels was so strong ns 

13 



102 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



to injure land of certain qualities, it seemed to be a fair deduction, that the 
benefit expected from so heavy a dressing, might have been obtained from 
half the quantity— if not on the first crop, at least on every one afterwards. 
That surely is nothing to be lamented. It also afforded some consolation 
for the evil of the too heavy marlings already applied, that the soil was 
thereby fitted to seize upon and retain a greater quantity of vegetable mat- 
ter, and would thereby ultimately reach a higher grade of fertility. 

The cause of this disease is less apparent than its remedies. It is certain 
that it is not produced merely by the quantity of calcareous earth in the 
soil. If it were so, similar effects, shown in diseased crops, would always 
be found on soils containing far greater proportions of that earth. These 
injurious effects have not been known, to any extent, except on soils for- 
merly acid, and made calcareous artificially ; and not on either neutral or 
calcareous soils, even by the addition of a great excess of marl. The small 
spots of land that nature has made excessively calcareous, and also sandy 
by marl beds cropping out at the surface of cultivated fields, (as the speci- 
men 4, page 38,) produce indeed a pale feeble growth of corn, such as might 
be expected from poor gravelly soils— but whether the plants yield grain, or 
are barren, they show none of those peculiar and strongly marked symp- 
toms of disease which have been described. Some such places on my farm, 
from which great quantities of poor sandy marl had been removed for ma- 
nure, and where the remainder still was of unknown depth, have been after- 
wards cultivated with the surrounding land ; and with no more aid than the 
portion of the adjacent soil carried thereto necessarily by the plough, these 
places have gradually improved to a product equal to 12 or 15 bushels of 
corn per acre, and have never exhibited any mark of the marl disease. 

By calculation, it appears that the heaviest dressing causing injurious 
consequences, if mixed to the depth of five inches, has not given to the soil 
a proportion of calcareous earth equal to two per cent. This proportion is 
greatly exceeded in our best shelly land, and no such disease is found there, 
even when the rich mould is nearly all washed away, and the shells mostly 
left. Soils of remarkable fertility from the prairies of Alabama and Missis- 
sippi have been shown (page 43) to contain from 8 to 16 per cent, of calca- 
reous earth, all of which proportions were in the state of most minute divi- 
sion, and therefore most ready to produce this disease, if it could have been 
produced by the quantity of this ingredient. The soil of the borders of 
the Nile, celebrated for its exuberant fertility through thousands of succes- 
sive crops, contains about 25 per cent, of carbonate of lime. (LyelUs 
Geology.) Very fertile soils in France and England sometimes contain 20 
or 30 per cent. Among the soils of remarkable good qualities "analyzed 
by Davy, one is stated to contain about 28 per cent., and another, which 
was eight-ninths of silicious sand, contained nearly 1 per cent, of calca- 
reous earth. Nor does he intimate that such proportions are very rare. 
Similar results have been stated, from analyses reported by Kirwan, Young, 
Bergman, and Rozier, (page 32,) and from all the same deduction is inevi- 
table, that much larger natural proportions of calcareous earth, than our 
diseased lands have received, are very common in France and England, 
without any such effect being produced. 

From the numerous facts of which these are examples, it is certain that 
calcareous earth acting alone, or directly, has not caused this injury; and 
it seems most probable that the cause is some new combination of lime 
formed in acid soils only ; and that this new combination is hurtful to grain 
under certain circumstances, which we may avoid, and is highly beneficial 
to every kind of clover. Perhaps it is the salt of lime, formed by the calca- 
reous manure combining with the acid of the soil, which not meeting with 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— Pit AC TICK. 



lO.'i 



enough vegetable matter to combine with and fix in the soil, causes, by its 
excess, all these injurious effects. 



CHAPTER X. 

RECAPITULATION OF THE EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES, AND DIRECTIONS FOR 
THEIR MOST PROFITABLE APPLICATION. 

Proposition 5 —continued. 

From the foregoing experiments may be gathered most of the effects, 
both injurious and beneficial, to be expected from calcareous manures, on 
the several kinds of soils there described. Information obtained from state- 
ments in detail of agricultural experiments, is far more satisfactory, to the 
attentive and laborious inquirer, than a mere report of the general opinions 
of the experimenter, derived from the results. But however preferable may 
be this mode of reporting facts, it is necessarily deficient in method, clear- 
ness, and conciseness. It may therefore be useful to bring together the 
general results of these experiments in a somewhat digested form, to serve 
as rules for practice. Other effects of calcareous manures will also be 
stated, which are equally established by experience, but which did not be- 
long to any one accurately observed experiment. 

The results that have been reported confirm in almost every particular 
the chemical powers before attributed to calcareous manures, by the theory 
of their action. It is admitted that causes and effects were not always 
proportioned — and that sometimes trivial apparent contradictions were pre- 
sented. But this is inevitable, even with regard to the best established 
doctrines, and the most perfect processes in agriculture. There are many 
practices universally admitted to be beneficial ; yet there are none, which 
are not found sometimes useless, or hurtful, on account of some other at- 
tendant circumstance, which was not expected, and perhaps not discovered. 
Every application of calcareous earth to soil is a chemical operation on a 
great scale. Decompositions and new combinations are produced, and in 
a manner generally conforming to the operator's expectations. But other 
and unknown agents may sometimes have a share in the process, and thus 
cause unlooked-for results. Such differences between practice and theory 
have sometimes occurred in my use of calcareous manures, (as may be 
observed in some of the reported experiments,) but they have neither been 
frequent, uniform, nor important. 

But in nearly all such cases of disproportion between causes and effects, 
in the use of marl, the manner of variation has been in the effects surpass- 
ing the anticipated power of the causes, (as previously inferred from rea- 
soning and in advance of my practice,) and in very few, if indeed any cases, 
of the contrary operation, of the results filling short of what might have 
been inferred from the theory of the action of calcareous manures. For 
such variation as this, it may be that no reader will require either excuse or 
explanation; nevertheless it is as much due to truth that it should be stated, 
as if the opposite kind of difference existed. 

Before my earliest trials, or practical knowledge, of the effects of marl, 
I was well assured that this manure would correct the acidity of poor soil, 
and enable it to be enriched by putrescent manures. But I was still totally 
at a loss to know, or to guess, how much calcareous earth would be re- 
quired for that result, or how much time might be required for the sufficient 



|04 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

quantity to produce its full effect ; and there were grounds to fear that the 
quantity of the manure and time for its operation, and consequently the 
cost compared to profit, would be much greater than after-experience has 
shown. If 1 000 bushels of ordinary marl had been required for an acre, 
and 1 years time for that application to raise the product to double its 
previous rate, the theory of the action of calcareous manures would have 
been sustained. But in fact, as great effect as this has been usually pro- 
duced, (in judicious and proper practice,) by measures of marl and of time less 
by three-fourths than those just stated. And thus, while effects have almost 
universally exceeded in measure the supposed power of their causes, I may 
safely assert that in not a single case, in the tide-water region, of a judi- 
cious application of marl or lime, has it been known that the effect fell 
short of what would be indicated by my theory of the action of calcare- 
ous earth as manure. 

But there is still another exception, if it be one, to admit, or of apparent 
want of accordance between theory and practice; and unluckily, this 
case is of the effects falling short of the supposed power of causes. 
There has as yet been made but little use of lime in the region immediately 
above the granite ridge which forms the lower falls of our eastern rivers. 
But almost all the failures of lime to act that have been heard of, or of 
effects falling much short of what were expected and are usual, are among 
the few experiments which have been made within fifty miles above the 
granite ridge. While truth requires that the fact of these failures should 
be stated, I pretend not to account for them. It may be the case, and proba- 
bly is, that there is a general difference of chemical constitution between 
even lands of like apparent texture and qualities, above and below the 
falls. Of the lands above, my knowledge is but slight, and founded only 
on general and slight personal observation, or the report and better inform- 
ation of practical cultivators. But judging from such uncertain lights, I would 
infer that the lands above the falls were much less acid than those below, 
even when as poor. The growth of pine and of sorrel is more scarce on 
lands above the falls ; and gypsum often acts there on natural soils, and 
lime (in some known trials) has produced but slight benefit. On the 
contrary, gypsum is scarcely ever operative on any natural soil below the falls, 
(that is on none of the great body of acid soil,) and lime never fails to act 
on these same lands. 

The most important observation to be made on the disproportion of 
causes and effects, in the tide-water region, is in regard to good neutral 
soils, and especially as to that best class known by the common name of 
" mulatto land." On such soils, which constitute the chief value of the 
best farms of James river, the applications of lime have been the most 
extensive, and always highly effective. 

The fact that the effects of calcareous manures so generally exceed in 
measure the supposed power of their causes, would seem to indicate that 
some other kind of action of calcareous earth as manure operates, in addition 
to all those set forth in chapter viii. This I think is more than probable. 

Dismissing then from further consideration such exceptions (whether 
real or apparent) to general rules, I will return to stating the results of 
applying marl as they have occurred almost, without exception in my own 
practice, and which are confirmed by the concurrence of all known and cer- 
tain testimony in regard to practical operations in the marl region of 
Virginia. 

Under like circumstances in other respects, the benefit derived from marl- 
ing will be in proportion to the quantity of vegetable or other putrescent 
matter given to the soil. It is essential that the cultivation should be mild, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. ]Q5 

and that no grazing be permitted on poor lands under regular tillage, and 
which have no supply of putrescent manure, except the grass and weeds 
growing on them, while at rest. Wherever farm-yard manure is used, the 
land should be marled heavily, and if the marl is applied first, so much the 
better. The marl cannot act by fixing the other manure, except so far as 
they are in contact, and when both are well mixed with the soil. 

When I first asserted the agency and force of calcareous manures in 
fixing alimentary manures in soils, and maintained the great and indispen- 
sable necessity of that operation, the proposition was founded almost ex- 
clusively on reasoning, and on observation of natural soils, and not at all on 
practical effects experienced from applications of marl or lime. From the 
very nature of the case, such effects as these, however important and 
valuable, could not be seen at first, nor fully even in a very few years after be- 
ginning to marl, nor their extent understood and appreciated. Moreover, 
my earlier experience had shown so fully the incapacity of my acid or na- 
turally poor soils to retain alimentary manures, and my labors and expendi- 
tures to apply them had been so very unprofitable, that I was not myself 
prepared for the full extent of the contrary operation, after marl had been 
applied. And though the views and estimation of such new operation 
have been yearly enlarging, from the experience of practical results, yet 
even when the last edition of this work was published, my estimate of the 
jixing value of marl fell short of what is now confidently believed, and 
which is every season manifest, of the greater effect and permanency, and 
far greater profit of alimentary manures, caused solely by the presence of 
calcareous earth in the same soils. Notwithstanding that the theory of the 
action of calcareous manures, as set forth in this essay, and published as 
early as 1821, made this fixing operation the first of the two most import- 
ant agencies, and though that theoretical view guided my practice from the 
beginning, still it was not until after a long time, that gradually and slowly 
I fully and truly estimated the value and profit of this operation. My early 
and zealous efforts (before beginning to marl) to improve naturally poor 
lands by the vegetable and animal manures of the farm, had been so much 
disappointed, and the effects had been so inconsiderable as well as so fleet- 
ing, that it was long before I arrived at the conviction of the full extent of 
the opposite and new condition of the soil. But during latter years, the 
certain and profitable operation, and durable operation, of every kind of 
vegetable or alimentary manure, no matter how or when applied, has been 
made obvious ; and now my estimate of value would be, that if marling 
had no other operation whatever than this one of making other manures 
much more active and durable, the profit from this one source alone would 
amply reward all the usual labors and expenses of marling. 

On " galled" spots, from which all the soil has been washed, and where no 
plant can live, the application of marl alone is utterly useless ; at least, 
until time and accident shall furnish some addition of vegetable matter 
also. Putrescent manures alone would there have but little effect, unless 
in great quantity, and would soon be all lost. But marl and putrescent 
matter together serve to form a new soil, and thus both are brought into 
useful action ; the marl is made active, and the putrescent manure perma- 
nent. The only perfect cures, that I have been able to make, at one opera- 
tion, of galls produced upon a barren subsoil, were by applying a heavy 
dressing of both calcareous and putrescent manures together; and this 
method may be relied on as certainly effectual. But though a fertile soil 
may thus be created, and fixed durably on galls otherwise irreclaimable, 
the cost will generally exceed the value of the land recovered, from the 
great quantity of putrescent matter required. Much of our acid hilly land 



]Qg CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

has been deprived, by washing, of a considerable portion of its natural 
soil, though not yet made entirely barren. The foregoing remarks equally 
apply to this kind of land, to the extent that its soil has been carried off. 
It will be profitable to apply marl to such land ; but its effect will be dimi- 
nished, in proportion to the previous removal of the soil. Calcareous soils, 
from the difference of texture, are much less apt to wash than other kinds. 
Within a few years after marling a field that has been injured by washing, 
many of the old gulleys will begin to produce vegetation, and show that a 
soil is gradually forming from the dead vegetables brought there by winds 
and rains, although no means had been used to aid this operation. 

This newly acquired ability to resist the washing power of rains, is one 
of the most beneficial effects of marling on hilly lands. And this effect is 
no less certain, than it is conformable to the theory of the action of marl 
and to reason. On soils containing very little lime, (or none, as in naked 
sub-soils,) whether they be sandy or clayey, there is nothing to combine the 
vegetable matter with the soil, nor the different ingredients of the soil wiih 
each other. Consequently they have no cohesion, and whenever made very 
soft, or semi-fluid by rains, and there is any declivity, there is nothing to 
prevent the soil, or upper surface, being washed off by excessive rain, though 
falling gently. Of course, torrents of rain produce the same injurious effects 
much more rapidly and effectually. But when such soils have been made 
calcareous, a chemical combination and bond of union and coherence is 
formed between the lime and the putrescent or organic matter, and of both 
with the silicious and argillaceous parts of the soil, which combination is 
able to resist any but an unusual degree of the washing action of rains. 
Moreover, by the increase of productive power thus given, grass grows 
more kindly and rapidly, and by its decay the vegetable mould is con- 
tinually augmented, and thereby the power of resisting washing is still 
more increased as the fertility of the soil is increased. This is but another 
aspect and operation of the power of calcareous manure in soils to fix and 
retain manures. 

The effect of marling will be much lessened by the soil being kept under 
exhausting cultivation. Such were the circumstances under which we 
may suppose that marl was tried and abandoned many years ago, in the 
case referred to in page 70. Proceeding upon the false supposition that 
marl was to enrich by direct action, like dung, it is most probable that it 
was applied to some of the poorest and most exhausted land, for the pur- 
pose of giving the manure a " fair trial." The disappointment of such ill- 
founded expectations was a sufficient reason for the experiment not being 
repeated, or being scarcely ever referred to again, unless as evidence of 
the worthlessness of marl. Yet with proper views of the action of this 
manure, this experiment might at first have as well proved the early effica- 
cy and value of marl, as it now does its durability. 

When acid soils are equally poor, the increase of the first crop from 
marling will be greater on sandy, than on clay soils ; though the latter, by 
heavier dressings and longer time, may ultimately become the best land, 
at least for wheat and for grass. The more acid the growth of any soil is, 
or would be, if suffered to stand, the more increase of crop may be ex- 
pected from marl ; which is directly the reverse of the effects of putrescent 
manures. The increase of the first crop on worn acid soil, I have never 
known under fifty per cent., and more often it is as much as one hundred; 
and the improvement continues to increase, under mild tillage, to three or 
four times the original product of the land. [See Exp. 11, page 86, and 
Exp. 4 and 6.] In this, and other general statements of effects, I suppose 
the land to bear not more than two grain crops in four years, and not to 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



107 



be subjected to grazing during the other two ; and that a sufficient cover 
of marl has been laid on for use, and not enough to cause disease. It is 
true, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to fix that proper medium, vary- 
ing as it may on every change of soil, of cropping, and of the kind of marl. 
But whatever error may be made in the proportion of marl applied, let it 
be on the side of light dressing, (except where putrescent manures are also 
laid on, or designed to be laid on before the next course of crops begins) 
— and if less increase of crop is gained to the acre, the cost and labor of 
marling will be lessened in a still greater proportion. If, when tillage has 
served to mix the marl well with the soil, sorrel should still show to any 
extent, it will sufficiently indicate that not enough marl had been applied, 
and that it may be added to, safely and profitably. If the nature of the 
soil, its condition and treatment, and the strength of the marl, all were 
known, it would be easy to direct the amount of a suitable dressing; but 
without knowing these circumstances, it will be safest to give not more 
than 200 or 250 bushels of marl, of say 40 per cent, to the acre of worn 
acid soils. Twice or thrice as much might be given, safely and profitably, 
to newly cleared wood land, or well manured land. Besides avoiding 
danger, it is more profitable to marl lightly at first on weak lands. If a 
farmer can carry out only ten thousand bushels of marl in a year, he will 
derive more product, and confer a greater amount of improvement, by 
spreading it over forty acres of the land intended for his next crop, than 
on twenty ; though the increase to the acre would probably be greatest in 
the latter case. By the lighter dressing, the land of the whole farm will be 
marled, and be storing up vegetable matter for its progressive improvement, 
in half the time that it could be marled at double the rate. 

The greater part of the calcareous earth applied at one time cannot be- 
gin to act as manure before several years have passed, owing to the coarse 
state of many of the shells, and the want of thoroughly mixing them with 
the soil. Therefore, if enough marl is applied to obtain its full effect on 
the first course of crops, there will certainly be too much afterwards. 

Perhaps the greatest profit to be derived from marling, though not the 
most apparent in the first few years, is on such soils as are full of wasting 
vegetable matter. Here the effect is mostly preservative, and the benefit 
and profit may be great, even though the increase of crop may be very 
inconsiderable. Putrescent manure laid on any acid soil, or the natural 
vegetable cover of those newly cleared, without marl, would soon be lost, 
and the crops reduced to one-half or less. But when marl is previously 
applied, this waste of fertility is prevented; and the estimate of benefit 
should not only include the actual increase of crop caused by marling, but 
as much more as the amount of the diminution which would otherwise 
have followed. Every intended clearing of woodland, and especially of 
those under a second growth of pines, ought to be marled before cutting 
down ; and it will be still better, if it can be done several years before. If 
the application is delayed until the new land is brought under cultivation, 
though much putrescent matter will be saved, still more must be wasted. 
By using marl some years before obtaining a crop from it, as many more 
successive growths of leaves will be converted to useful manure, and fixed 
in the soil ; and the increased fertility will more than compensate for the 
delay. By such an operation, the farmer makes a loan to the soil, at a distant 
time for payment, but on ample security, and at a high rate of compound 
interest. 

Some experienced cultivators have believed that the most profitable way 
to manage pine old fields, when cleared of their second growth, was to cul- 
tivate them every year, until worn out — because, as they said, such land 



108 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

would not last much longer, no matter how mildly treated. This opinion, 
which would seem at first so absurd, and in opposition to all the received 
rules for good husbandry, is considerably supported by the properties 
which are here ascribed to such soils. When these lands are first cut 
down, an immense quantity of vegetable matter is accumulated on the 
surface, which, notwithstanding its accompanying acid quality, is capable 
of making two or three crops nearly as good as the land was ever be- 
fore able to bring. But as the soil has no power to retain this vegetable 
matter, it will begin rapidly to decompose and waste, as soon as exposed 
to the sun; and will be lost, except so much as is caught, while escaping, 
by the roots of growing crops. The previous application of marl, however, 
would make it profitable in these, as well as other cases, to adopt a mild 
and meliorating course of tillage. 

Less improvement will be obtained by marling worn soils of the kind 
called " free light land," than other acid soils which originally produced 
much more sparingly. The early productiveness of this kind of soil, and 
its rapid exhaustion by cultivation, at first view seem to contradict the opi- 
nion that durability and the ease of improving by putrescent manures are 
proportioned to the natural fertility of the soil. But a full consideration of 
the circumstances will show that no such contradiction exists. 

In defining the term natural fertility, it was stated that it should not be 
measured by the earliest products of a new soil, which might be either 
much reduced, or increased, by temporary causes. The early fertility of 
free light land is so rapidly destroyed, as to take away all ground for con- 
sidering it as fixed in, and belonging to the soil. It is like the effect of 
dung on the same land afterwards, which throws out all its benefit in the 
course of one or at most two years, and leaves the land as poor as before. 
-But still it needs explanation why so much productiveness can at first be 
exerted by any acid soil, as in those described in the 14th experiment. The 
causes may be found in the following statement. These soils, and also their 
sub-soils, are principally composed of coarse sand, which makes them of 
more open texture than best suits pine, and (when rich enough) more 
favorable to other trees, the leaves of which have no natural acid, and 
therefore decompose more readily. As fast as the fallen leaves rot, they 
are of course exposed to waste ; but the rains convey much of their finer 
parts down into the open soil, where the less degree of heat retards their 
final decomposition. Still this enriching matter is liable to be further de- 
composed, and to final waste ; but though continually wasting, it is also 
continually added to by the rotting leaves above. The shelter of the upper 
coat of unrotted leaves, and the shade of the trees, cause the first as well 
as the last stages of decomposition to proceed slowly, and to favor the 
mechanical process of the products being mixed with the soil. But there 
is no chemical union of the vegetable matter with the soil. When the 
land is cleared, and opened by the plough, the decomposition of all the 
accumulated vegetable matter is hastened by the increased action of sun 
and air, and in a short time every thing is converted to food for plants. This 
abundant supply suffices to produce two or three fine crops. But now, 
the most fruitful source of vegetable matter has been cut off— and the soil 
is kept so heated (by its open texture) as to be unable to hold enriching 
matters, even if they were furnished. The land soon becomes poor, and 
must remain so, as long as these causes operate, even though cultivated 
under the mildest rotation. When the transient fertility of such a soil is 
gone, its acid qualities (which were before concealed in some measure by 
so much enriching matter,) become evident. Sorrel and broom grass cover 
the land, and if allowed to stand, pines will then take complete possession, 
because the poverty of the soil leaves them no rival to contend with. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE. jqq 

Marling deepens cultivated sandy soils, even lower than the plough may 
have penetrated. This was an unexpected result, and when first observed 
seemed scarcely credible. But this effect also is a consequence of the 
power of calcareous earth to fix manures. As stated in the foregoing 
paragraph, the soluble and finely divided particles of rotted vegetable mat- 
ters are carried by the rains below the soil ; but as there is no calcareous 
earth there to fix them, they must again rise in a gaseous form, after their 
last decomposition, unless previously taken up by growing plants. But 
after the soil is marled, calcareous as well as putrescent matter is carried 
down by the rains as far as the soil is open enough for it to pass. This 
will always be as deep as the ploughing has been, and somewhat deeper 
in loose earth ; and the chemical union formed between these different 
substances serves to fix both, and thus increases the depth of the soil. 
This effect is very different from the deepening of a soil by letting the 
plough run into the barren sub-soil. If, by this mechanical process, a soil 
of only three inches is increased to six, as much as it gains in depth, it 
loses in richness. But when a marled soil is deepened gradually, its dark 
color and apparent richness are increased, as well as its depth. Formerly, 
single-horse ploughs were used to break all my acid soils, and even these 
would often turn up sub-soil. The average depth of soil on old land did 
not exceed three inches, nor two on the newly cleared. Even before marl- 
ing was commenced, my ploughing had generally sunk into the sub-soil — 
and since 1825, most of this originally thin soil has required three mules, 
or two good horses to a plough, to break the necessary depth. The soil is 
now from six to eight inches' deep generally, from the joint operation of 
marling and deepening the ploughing a little in the beginning of every 
course of crops ; and to that depth, or very nearly, (he land is now ploughed 
whenever preparing for corn, or for wheat on clover. 

Since marling was begun, the deepening of the soil has much more 
generally preceded than followed the deepening of the ploughing. How 
destructive to the power of soil this present depth of ploughing would have 
been, without marling, may be inferred from the continued decrease of the 
crop, through four successive courses of a verv mild rotation, on the spot 
kept without marl in experiment 10. Yet the depth of ploughing there 
did not exceed six inches, and depths of nine and even twelve inches were 
tried, without injury, on parts of the adjacent marled land. 

This remarkable and valuable effect of marling, in deepening the soil, 
is increased in action by the sub-soil being sandy, which is commonly 
deemed the worst kind of sub-soil. Land having a clay sub-soil, which is 
known in common parlance as land with " a good foundation," is almost 
universally prized ; and that impervious sub-soil is supposed necessary to 
prevent the manure and the rains from sinking, and being lost. And such 
may be among the disadvantages, before marling, of poor land having a 
sandy sub-soil. But not so after marling. While the open texture of 
such a sub-soil permits so much of the water as is superfluous and injurious 
to sink and disappear, and the combined manures to sink enough to deepen 
the soil, (by converting barren sub-soil to productive soil.) the attractive force 
of the calcareous earth, for both putrescent matter and moisture, will much 
more effectually prevent either from being lost to the soil, than the mechani- 
cal obstruction of a clay sub-soil. Great as are the objections entertained 
by most farmers to sandy sub-soils, or to what they call " land without any 
foundation," I would decidedly prefer such to lands having an impervious 
clay sub-soil— supposing both to be equally barren. The subjects of all 
my experiments stated as made on acid sandy loams, had also sub-soils of 
yellow and barren sand; and on such lands have been made my greatest 
and most profitable improvements by marling. However, a sub-soil (and 

14 



110 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



also a soil) more of medium texture, would no doubt have been as much 
better than the very sandy, as the latter was better than the very stiff and 
impervious clay sub-soils. 

Besides the general benefit which marling causes equally to all crops, 
by making the soils they grow on richer and more productive, there are 
other particular benefits which affect some plants more than others. For 
example, marling serves to make soils warmer, and thereby hastens the 
ripening of every crop, more than would take place on the like soils, if 
made equally productive by other than calcareous manures. This quality 
of marled land is highly important to cotton, as our summers are not long 
enough to mature the later pods. Wheat also derives especial benefit from 
the warmth thus added to the soil. It is enabled better to withstand the 
severe cold of winter; and even the short time by which its ripening is 
forwarded by marling, serves very much to lessen the danger of that crop 
from the worst of all its diseases, the rust. Wheat also profits by the ab- 
sorbent power of marled land, (by which sands acquire, to some extent, 
the best qualities of clays,) though less so than clover and other grasses 
that flourish best in a moist climate. Indian corn does not need more time 
for maturing than our summers afford, (except on the poorest land,) and 
can sustain much drought without injury , and therefore is less aided by 
these qualities of marled land. Most (if not all) the different plants of the 
pea kind, and all the varieties of clover, derive such remarkable benefit 
from marling, that it must be caused by some peculiarity in the nature of 
those plants. Perhaps a large portion of calcareous earth is necessary as 
part of their food, to aid in the formation of the substance of these plants, as 
well as to preserve their healthy existence. 

On acid soils, without heavy manuring, it is scarcely possible to raise red 
• clover ; and even with every aid from putrescent manure, the crop will be 
both uncertain and unprofitable. The recommendation of this grass, as 
part of a general system of cultivation and improvement, by the author of 
• Arator? is sufficient to prove that his improvements were made on soils 
far better than such as are general. Almost every zealous cultivator and 
improver (in prospect) of acid soil has been induced to attempt clover cul- 
ture, either by the recommendations of writers on this grass, or by the 
success witnessed on better constituted soils elsewhere. The utmost that 
has been gained, by any of these numerous efforts, has been sometimes to 
obtain one, or at most two mowings, of middling clover, on some very 
rich lot, which had been prepared in the most perfect manner by the pre- 
vious cultivation of tobacco. Even in such situations, this degree of suc- 
cess could only be obtained by the concurrence of the most favorable sea- 
sons. Severe cold, and sudden alternations of temperature in winter and 
spring, and the spells of hot and dry weather which we usually have in 
summer, were alike fatal to the growth of clover, on so unfriendly a soil. 
The few examples of partial success never served to pay for the more fre- 
quent failures and losses ; and a few years' trial would convince the most 
ardent, or the most obstinate advocate for the clover husbandry, that its 
introduction on the great body of land in lower Virginia was absolutely 
impossible. Still the general failure was by common consent attributed to 
any thing but the true cause. There was always some reason offered for 
each particular failure, sufficient to cause it, and but for which, (it was sup- 
posed,) a crop might have been raised. Either the young plants were killed 
by freezing soon after first springing from the seed — or a drought occurred 
when the crop was most exposed to the sun, by reaping the sheltering crop 
of wheat — or native and hardy weeds overran the crop — and all such dis- 
asters were supposed to be increased in force, and rendered generally fatal, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. \ \ \ 

by our sandy soil, and hot and dry summers. But after the true evil, the 
acid nature of the soil, is removed by marling, clover ceases to be a feeble 
exotic. It is at once naturalized on our soil, and is able to contend with 
rival plants, and to undergo every severity and change of season, as safely 
as our crops of corn and wheat — and offers to our acceptance the fruition 
of those hopes of profit and improvement from clover, with which pre- 
viously we had only been deluded. 

After much waste of seed and labor, and years of disappointed efforts, 
I abandoned clover as utterly hopeless. But after marling the fields on 
which the raising of clover had been vainly attempted, there arose from its 
scattered and feeble remains, a growth which served to prove that its cul- 
tivation would then be safe and profitable. It has since been gradually ex- 
tended over all the fields. It will stand well, and maintain a healthy growth 
on the poorest marled land ; but the crop is too scanty for mowing, or per- 
haps for profit of any kind, on most poor sandy soils, unless aided by gyp- 
sum. Newly cleared lands yield better clover than the old, though the 
latter may produce as heavy grain crops. The remarkable crops of clover 
raised on very poor clay soils, after marling, have been already described. 
This grass, even without gypsum, and still more if aided by that manure, 
will add greatly to the improving power of marl ; but it may do as much 
harm as service, if we greedily take from the soil nearly all of the supply 
of putrescent matter which it affords. 

Some other plants, less welcome than clover, are equally favored by 
marling. Unless both the tillage and the rotation of crops be good, green- 
sward (poa pratensis,) blue grass (poa compressa,) wire grass (cynodon 
dactylon,) and partridge pea (vicia sativa,) will soon increase so as to be 
not less impediments to bad tillage, or to the grain crops, than mani- 
fest evidences of an entire change in the character and power of the soil. 

The power of calcareous manures is still more strongly shown in the 
eradication of certain plants, as has been before incidentally mentioned. 
Sorrel (rumex acetosus,) is the most plentiful and injurious weed on the 
cultivated acid soils of lower Virginia; an unmixed growth of poverty 
grass (aristida gracilis and a. dichotoma) is spread over all such lands, a 
year after being left at rest ; at a somewhat later time broom-grass (an- 
dropogon) of different kinds covers them completely ; and if suffered to 
remain unbroken a few years longer a thick growth of young pines will 
succeed. But as soon as such land is sufficiently and properly marled, 
there remains no longer the peculiar disposition or even power of the soil 
to produce these plants. Sorrel is totally removed, and poverty grass no 
more is to be found, where both in their turn before had entire possession. 
The appearance of a single tuft of either of these plants is enough to prove 
that the acid quality of the soil on that spot still remains, and that either 
more marl, or more complete intermixture, is still wanting. Thus, the pre- 
sence of either of these plants is the most unerring as well as most conve- 
nient and ready indication of a soil wanting calcareous manure. The most 
laborious analyses, by the most able chemists, directed to ascertain the dif- 
ferent characters of soils in this respect, are not to be compared for accu- 
racy to the tests furnished by either the appearance or total absence of 
sorrel or poverty grass. In regard to broom-grass and pines, the change 
is not so sudden, nor complete; but still the soil will have been made mani- 
festly unfriendly to both. Some striking apparent exceptions to these rules 
have caused some persons to doubt of their correctness; when full exa- 
mination of the circumstances would have confirmed my positions. I have 
known a mere top-dressing of marl, left for some years on a worn-out old 
field, to eradicate the before general growth of broom-grass, and substitute 



j ]2 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

a cover of annual weeds. Yet on other tillage land, after marling and one 
crop of wheat on fallow, I have seen the growth of broom-grass return, 
and seemingly with greater than its former vigor. But this return and 
vigor were but temporary, and the land is now comparatively free from this 
injurious weed. When soil, already filled with its seeds, is very imperfectly 
mixed with marl by ploughing, these is nothing to prevent the broom-grass 
springing from all the spots not touched by the marl, whether these spots 
be above or below or between unmixed masses of marl. And the growth 
being thin and scattered, and not covering the surface completely as for- 
merly, will cause the separate tufts of broom-grass to be much more luxu- 
riant, and greater impediments to tillage, than previously. But the next 
course of tillage will serve to mix the marl and soil completely, and remove 
all appearance of marl being favorable instead of destructive to broom- 
grass. Sorrel may often be seen growing out of the heaps of pure marl, 
dropped from the carts on acid land, and the heaps left thus, unspread, 
through a summer. But this apparent and very striking exception may 
be fully explained. The heaps of marl, thus left, had not as yet by any in- 
termixture affected the original composition of the soil below ; and the 
seeds or roots of sorrel therein were therefore free to spring and grow ; 
and the great hardiness and remarkable vital power of that plant enabled it 
to rise through the (to it) dead matter and great obstruction of several 
inches thickness of pure marl above. On examining the roots of sorrel 
thus growing out of marl, it will be seen clearly, and invariably, that they 
drew all their support from the still acid soil below, and merely passed 
through the marl, without drawing any thing therefrom. 



CHAPTER XI. 

RECAPITULATION OF EFFECTS, AND DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICE CONTINUED. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

If the foregoing views may be confided in, the general course most pro- 
per to pursue in using calcareous manures may thence be deduced without 
difficulty. But as I have found, since the publication of the previous edition 
of this essay, that many persons still ask for more special directions to guide 
their operations, and as all such difficulties may not be entirely obviated 
even by the more full details now given, I will here add the following di- 
rections, at the risk of their being considered superfluous. These direc- 
tions, like all the foregoing reasoning, may apply generally, if not entirely, 
to the use of all kinds of calcareous manures, and to soils in various re- 
gions; but to avoid too wide a range, I shall consider them as applied par- 
ticularly to the poor lands of the tide-water region, and addressed to per- 
sons who are just commencing their improvement by means of the fossil 
shells or marl of the same region. 

As the cheapest mode of furnishing vegetable matter to land intended to 
be marled and cultivated, no grazing should be permitted. It is best to 
put the marl on the grass previous to ploughing the field for corn, as the 
early effect of this manure is greatest when it has been placed in contact 
with the vegetable matter. But this advantage is not so great as to induce 
the ploughing to be delayed, or to stop the marling after that operation. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



113 



When the marl is spread upon the ploughed surface, it can be better mixed 
with the soil by the cultivation of the crop; and this advantage in some 
measure compensates for the loss of that which would have been obtained 
from an earlier application on the sod. If marl is ploughed in, it should 
not be so deeply as to prevent its being mixed with the soil, speedily and 
thoroughly, by the subsequent tillage. To make sure of equal operation, 
the marl should be spread regularly over the surface. From neglect in 
this respect, a dressing of marl is often too thin in many places to have its 
proper effect, and in others, so thick as to prove injurious. Hence it is, 
that marl-burnt stalks of corn and tufts of sorrel are sometimes seen on 
the same acre. 

After the first year, the farmer may generally marl fast enough to keep 
ahead of his cultivation ; and even though he should reduce the space of 
his tillage to one-half, it will be best for him not to put an acre in corn with- 
out its being marled. Fifty acres can generally be both marled and tilled, 
as cheaply as one hundred can be tilled without marling ; and the fifty with 
marl will produce as much as the hundred without, in the first course of 
crops, and much more afterwards. 

That rotation of crops which gives most vegetable matter to the soil, is 
best to aid the effects of marl recently applied. The four-shift rotation is 
convenient, in this respect, because two or three years of rest may be given 
in each course of the rotation at first, upon the poorest land ; and the num- 
ber of exhausting crops may be increased, first to two, then to three in the 
rotation, as the soil advances to its highest state of productiveness. 

After marling, clover should be sown, and gypsum on the clover. On 
poor, though marled land, of course only a poor growth of clover can be 
expected ; but wherever other manures are given, and especially if gyp- 
sum is found to act well, the crop of clover becomes a most important part 
of the improvement by marling. Without clover, and without returning the 
greater part of the early product to the soil, the greatest value of marling will 
not be seen. A small proportion of the clover may be used as food for cattle ; 
and in a few years even this small share will far exceed all the grass that the 
fields furnished before marling and the limitation of grazing. What is at 
first objected to as lessening the food of grazing stock, and their products, 
within a few years becomes the source of a far more abundant supply. 

During the first few years of marling, but little attention can (or indeed 
ought to) be given to making putrescent manures, because the soil much 
more needs calcareous manure— and three or four acres may generally be 
supplied with the latter, as cheaply as one with the former. But putrescent 
manures cannot any where be used to so much advantage as upon poor 
soils made calcareous ; and no farmer can make and apply vegetable mat- 
ter as manure to greater profit than he who has marled his poor fields, and 
can then withdraw his labor from applying the more to the less valuable 
manure. After the farm has been marled over at the light rate recom- 
mended at first, every effort should be made to accumulate and apply vege- 
table manures ; and with their gradual extension over the fields, a second 
application of marl may be made, making the whole quantity, in both the 
first and second marling, 500 or 600 bushels to the acre, or even more ; 
which quantity would have been hurtful if given at first, but which will now 
be not only harmless, but necessary to fix and retain so much putrescent 
and nutritive matter in the soil. 

The above injunction, that "every effort should be made to accumulate 
and apply vegetable manures," should not be limited, as most new improvers 
would be apt to do, to the mere economical use of the vegetable materials 
for manure furnished by the crops, and those only as prepared by being 



114 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



first used as litter for animals. Not only these, but every other vegetable 
and putrescent material that is accessible should be saved and applied, and 
even without any intermediate process of preparation, and at any time of 
the year, and state of the fields, provided no growing or commencing crop 
be thereby molested. Surplus straw, not needed for food or litter, is most 
valuable and cheaply applied as top-dressing to clover or other grass ; though 
it is an inconvenient and troublesome manure if immediately ploughed 
under. Leaves from the woods of the farm may be used most profitably 
in the same manner, to the full extent of the resources offered. And though 
the manuring operations on the Coggins Point farm have not yet been ex- 
tended beyond the last named putrescent material, it is believed that other 
and abundant sources yet remain untried and unproductive on that and 
most other farms, and to use which would be but a waste of labor or 
money, if in advance of marling. Among the most abundant of such ma- 
terials, may be mentioned marsh grasses and marsh or pond mud ; and also 
the purchase of rich alimentary manures from towns, to be carried by land 
or by water carriage to much greater distances than has yet been done, 
or can be afforded to be done, on other lands. Even saw-dust and spent 
tanner's bark, which, because of their insolubility, are generally deemed of 
no value as manures, would form important and valuable materials for 
fertilization, in situations where they can be obtained cheaply and in great 
quantity. Mixing these or other insoluble vegetable substances with rich 
putrescent matters, and still more if with some alkaline matter also, would 
render them soluble, and convert them to food for plants. 

But putting aside the consideration of all such unusual or untried re- 
sources and operations for additional fertilization, and limiting the present 
view merely to the ordinary materials furnished by every farm, the progress 
and profit of improvement by such means only, after marling, will be greater 
than will be at first believed by most cultivators of acid soils, not yet marled 
or limed. If, on such soils, the general course above advised be pursued, 
(and using merely the resources of the farm after marling,) the products of 
crops on all the marled land usually will be doubled in the first course of 
the rotation— often in the first crop immediately following the marling; and 
the original product may be expected to be tripled by the third return of 
the rotation. And this may be from merely applying marl in sufficient 
(and not excessive) quantities, and giving the land two years rest in four 
without grazing. But on the parts having the aid of farm-yard and other 
putrescent manures, and of clover, still greater returns may be obtained. 

When such statements as these are made, the question naturally occurs 
to the reader, "Has the writer himself met with so much success,' and what 
has been the actual result of his labors in general, in the business so 
strongly recommended ?" This question I have no right to shrink from, 
although the answer to be given fully will be objectionable, from the ego- 
tism inseparable from such details, which are certainly not worth being 
thus presented to public notice, and which are called for only because silence 
on this head might be considered as operating against the general tenor of 
this essay. It will be sufficient here to state generally, that my average 
profits from marling, and the increased fertility derived from it, have not 
been as great as are promised above, nor such as might be expected from 
the most successful experiments of which the results have been reported — 
and for these reasons. 1st. The greater part of my land was not of soil 
the best adapted to be improved by marling. 2d. Having at first every 
thing to learn, and to prove by trial, much of my labor was lost uselessly, 
or spent in excessive and injurious applications. 3d. The fitness given to 
the soil by marl to produce clover was not found out until after that best 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



115 



auxiliary to improvement ought to have been in full use. 4th. From the 
want of labor and capital to use both calcareous and putrescent manures, 
the collecting and applying of the latter were almost entirely neglected as 
long as there was full employment in marling. And, 5th. That general bad 
practical management, which I have to admit has marked all my business, 
has of course also affected injuriously this important branch— though in 
a less degree, because it was as much as possible (until about 182G,) under 
my personal and close attention. With all these drawbacks to complete 
success, I am able to state the following general results of my operations. 
Omitting the land on Coggins Point farm not susceptible of any considera- 
ble or profitable improvement from marling, the great body of the farm 
was tripled in productive power from 1818, when my first experiment was 
made, to 1834. Particular bodies of soil now produce four-fold the former 
amount without any other kind of manure ; and the whole farm, including 
the parts least improved as well as the most, and allowing for the increase 
of extent of surface, will now make more than double of its best product 
before marling. Statements on this head, more in detail, will be given in 
the Appendix. 

With all the increase of products that I have ascribed to marling, the 
heaviest amounts stated may appear inconsiderable to farmers who till soils 
more favored by nature. Corn yielding twenty-five or thirty bushels to 
the acre, is doubled by many natural soils in the western states ; and ten 
or twelve bushels of wheat, will still less compare with the product of the 
best lime-stone clay land. The cultivators of our poor region, however, 
know that such products, without any future increase, would be a prodi- 
gious addition to their present gains. Still it is doubtful whether these re- 
wards are sufficiently high to tempt many of my countrymen speedily to 
accept them. The opinions of many farmers have been so long fixed, and 
their habits are so uniform and unvarying, that it is difficult to excite them 
to adopt any new plan of improvement, except by promises of profits so 
great, that an uncommon share of credulity would be necessary to expect 
their fulfilment. The net profits of marling, if estimated at twenty or even 
fifty per cent, per annum, on the expense, for ever — or the assurance, by 
good evidence, of doubling the crops of a farm in ten years or less — will 
scarcely attract the attention of those who would embrace without any 
scrutiny, a plan that promised five times as much. Hall's scheme for cul- 
tivating corn was a stimulus exactly suited to their lethargic state ; and 
that impudent Irish impostor found many steady old-fashioned farmers will- 
ing to pay for his directions for making five hundred barrels of corn with- 
out ploughing, and with the hand labor of two men only. 

The products and profits derived from the use of marl as presented in 
the preceding pages, considerable as they are, have been kept down, or 
lessened in amount, by my then want of experience, and ignorance of the 
danger of injudicious applications. My errors may at least enable others 
to avoid similar losses, and thereby to reach equal profits with half the ex- 
pense of time and labor. But are we to consider even the greatest known 
increase of product that has been yet gained in a few years after marling, 
as showing the full amount of improvement and profit to be derived ? Cer- 
tainly not ; and if we may venture to leave the sure ground of practical ex- 
perience, and look forward to what is promised by the theory of the opera- 
tion of calcareous manures, we must anticipate future crops far exceeding 
what have yet been obtained. To this, the ready objection may be oppos- 
ed, that the sandiness of the greater part of our lands will always prevent 
their being raised to a high state of productiveness— and particularly, that 
no care nor improvement can make heavy crops of wheat on such soils. 



U6 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

This very genera] opinion is far from being correct; and as the error is 
important, it may be useful to offer some evidence in support of the great 
value to which sandy soils may arrive. 

We are so accustomed to find sandy soils poor, that it is difficult for us 
to connect with them the idea of fertility, and still less of durability. Yet 
British agriculturists, who were acquainted with clays and clay loams of 
as great value, and as well managed under tillage, as any in the world, 
speak in still higher terms of certain soils which are even more sandy than 
most of ours. For example— " Rich sandy soils, however." says Sir John 
Sinclair, " such as those of Frodsham in Cheshire, are invaluable. They 
are cultivated at a moderate expense; and at all times have a dry sound- 
ness, accompanied by moisture, which secures excellent crops, even in the 
driest summers."* Robert Brown (one of the very few who have deserved 
the character of being both able writers and successful practical cultiva- 
tors) says— "Perhaps a true sandy loam, incumbent on a sound sub-soil, 
is the most valuable of all soils."f Arthur Young, when describing the 
soils of France, in his agricultural survey of that country, in several places 
speaks in the highest terms of different bodies of light or sandy soils, of 
which the following example, of the extensive district which he calls the 
plain of the Garonne, will be enough to quote : " It is entered about Crei- 
sensac, and improves all the way to Montauban and Toulouse, where it is 

one of the finest bodies of fertile soil that can any where be seen." 

" Through all this plain, wherever the soil is found excellent, it consists us- 
ually of a deep mellow friable sandy loam, with moisture sufficient for any 
thing ; much of it is calcareous."! The soil of Belgium, so celebrated for 
its high improvement and remarkable productiveness, is mostly sandy. 
The author last quoted, in another work describes a body of land in the 
county of Norfolk, as " one of the finest tracts that is any where to be 

seen" " a fine, deep, mellow, putrid sandy loam, adhesive enough to 

fear no drought, and friable enough to strain off superfluous moisture, so 
that all seasons suit it ; from texture free to work, and from chemical quali- 
ties sure to produce in luxuriance whatever the industry of man commits 
to its friendly bosom."§ Mr. Coke, the great Norfolk farmer, made on the 
average 24 bushels of wheat to the acre, on an estate of as sandy soil as 
our Southampton, (where probably a general average of two bushels could 
not be obtained, if general wheat culture were attempted)— and many other 
farms in Norfolk yielded much better wheat than Mr. Coke's in 1804, when 
Young's survey was made. Several farms averaged 36 bushels, and one 
of 40 is stated; and the general average of the county was 24 bushels.|| 
Yet the county of Norfolk was formerly pronounced by Charles II. to be 
only fit " to cut up into strips, to make roads of for the balance of the 
kingdom"— and that sportive description expressed strongly the sandy na- 
ture of the soil, as well as its then state of poverty. 

Because certain qualities of poor clay soils (particularly their absorbent 
power) make them better than poor sands for producing wheat, we most 
strangely attach a value to the stiffness and intractability of the former. 
Yet if all the absorbent quality and productive power of clay could be 
given to sand, surely the latter would be the more valuable in proportion 
to its being friable and easy to cultivate. The causes of all the valuable 
qualities and productive power of the rich sands that have been referred 
to, are only calcareous and putrescent manures, and depth of soil ; and if 

* Code of Agriculture, p. 12. 

t Brown's Treatise on Agriculture, p. 218, of "Agriculture" in Edin. Ency, 

t Young's Tour in France. 

§ Young's Survey of Norfolk, p. 4. 

|| Young's Survey of Norfolk, p. 300 to 304. 



CALCAREOUS MAM UKES— PRACTICE. 



117 



the same means can be used, our now poor sands may also be made as 
productive and valuable. I do not mean to assert that the most highly im- 
proved sandy soils can produce as much wheat as the best clay soils ; but 
they will not fall so far short as to prevent their being the more valuable 
lands, for wheat as well as other crops, on account of their being more easily 
cultivated, and less liable to suffer from bad seasons, or bad management. 

The greatest objection to the poor sandy lands of lower Virginia, as 
subjects for improvement by calcareous manures, is not their excess of 
sand, nor yet their poverty — great as may be both these disadvantages — but 
it is the shallowness of the poor and sandy soil. The natural soil of a 
large portion of these lands, before cultivation, is not more than from one 
to two inches deep, lying on a barren sub-soil of sand. Now suppose this 
very shallow soil to be doubled or even tripled in fertility by marling, or a 
productive power of 6 or 9 bushels of corn be raised to 18 bushels, still it 
would be but mean land. And a long succession of annual vegetable 
covers to be left on the land, or a great quantity of prepared putrescent 
manure furnished at once, would be required to make such soil both rich 
and deep. If the original soil had been ten inches deep, the fertility before 
marling might have been but little more than on the shallowest soil. But 
heavy marling and deep and good tillage would have served speedily to 
make a rich and productive soil, approaching in value to those rich sands 
of Europe mentioned above. 

Another large class of the poor lands of lower Virginia are the close stiff 
clays, of which the soil is still more shallow than the sands. Such land 
was described at page 77 and formed the subjects of experiments 5, 6 and 7. 
This is the very worst soil known before being marled, and also the most 
worthless of all known marled soils. And yet a three-fold product has been 
usually obtained on these lands by marling alone, within four or at most 
eight years after the application of marl. Still, this land, as well as the most 
sandy, wants only greater depth of soil and abundance of vegetable mat- 
ter, to become fertile and valuable. 

While then calcareous manures may be counted on to produce great im- 
provement on all soils not naturally provided with them — and to show as 
great a per centage of increase on the worst as on better soils, and a remu- 
nerating profit on all — still, it will be far more profitable to marl some soils 
than others. Dung, or other alimentary manure in the best condition for 
use, increases vegetation mainly in proportion to the quantity of the ma- 
nure, and without regard or proportion to the previous product of the soil. 
Thus, a wasteful application of dung might in a single year increase the 
production of an acre of very poor land, from 5 bushels to 50 bushels of 
corn. But calcareous manures improve production in proportion to the 
previous power of the soil ; and if the original product be very low, the 
addition thereto of 100 or even 200 per cent., made on the first crops after 
marling, will show still but a poor product. These remarks and illustra- 
tions are designed for the instruction of those beginners who deem it import- 
ant to learn on what kinds of soil to apply their marl. In more general 
terms I would answer, " apply it to all soils not already calcareous;" for 
however different may be the measure of profit, I have never known marl 
applied unprofitably in regard to place, if applied judiciously in maimer. 
Of course I refer to soils having some previous productive power and some 
tenacity ; and not to such naked sands, drifting with the winds, as are seen 
in parts of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. 



15 



j |g CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PERMANENCY OF CALCAREOUS MANURES, AND OF ALIMENTARY OR PUTRES- 
CENT MANURES, WHEN COMBINED WITH THE CALCAREOUS. 

Proposition 5 — continued. 

It was stated, (page 70) that the ground on which an old experiment 
was made and abandoned as a failure, more than sixty years ago, still con- 
tinues to show the effects of marl. Lord Karnes mentions a fact of the 
continued beneficial effect of an application of calcareous manure, which 
was known to be one hundred and twenty years old.* Every author who 
has treated of manures of this nature, attests their long duration. But 
when they say that they will last twenty years, or even one hundred and 
twenty years, it amounts to the admission that at some future time the 
effects of these manures will be lost. This I deny — and from the nature 
and action of calcareous earth, claim for its effects a duration that will 
have no end. 

If calcareous earth, applied as manure, is not afterwards combined with 
some acid in the soil, it must retain its first form, which is as indestructible, 
and as little liable to be wasted, by any cause whatever, as the sand and 
clay that form the other earthy ingredients of the soil. The only possible 
vent for its loss, is the very small proportion taken up by the roots of 
plants, which is so inconsiderable as scarcely to deserve naming. 

Clay is a manure for sandy soils, serving to close their too open texture. 
When so applied, no one can doubt but that this effect of the clay will last 
as long as its presence, or as long as the soil itself. Neither can calcareous 
earth cease to exert its peculiar powers as a manure, any more than clay 
can, by the lapse of time, lose its power of making sands more firm and 
adhesive. Making due allowance for the minute quantity drawn up into 
growing plants, it is as absurd to assert that the calcareous earth in a soil, 
whether furnished by nature or not, can be exhausted, as that cultivation 
can deprive a soil of its sand or clay. 

But on my supposition that calcareous earth will change its form by 
combining with acid in the soil, it may perhaps be doubted by some whe- 
ther it will be equally safe from waste under its new form. It must be ad- 
mitted that the permanency of this compound cannot be proved by its 
insolubility, or other properties, because neither the kind nor the nature of 
the salt itself is yet known. f But judging from the force with which good 
neutral soils resist the exhaustion of their fertility, and their always pre- 
serving their peculiar character, it cannot be believed that the calcareous 
earth, once present, has been lessened in durability by its chemical change 
of form. It was contended that the action of calcareous earth is absolutely 
necessary to make a poor acid soil fertile ; but it does not thence follow 
that other substances, and particularly this salt of lime, may not serve as 
well to preserve the fertility bestowed at first by calcareous earth. All that 
is required for this purpose, is the power of combining with putrescent 
matter, and thereby fixing it in the soil ; and judging solely from effects, 

* Gentleman Farmer, page 266, 2d Edin. edition. 

t This passage is left as it stood in the first edition, before the discovery of the humic 
acid was known. Indeed no aid has been derived from that discovery, nor any change 
of language made in consequence of it, except by inserting the quotation respecting 
this substance, and the remarks thereon, at page 53. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. J J9 

this power seems to be possessed in an eminent degree by this new com- 
bination of lime. If this salt is the oxalate of lime, (as there is most rea- 
son to believe,) it is insoluble in water, and consequently safe from waste ; 
and the same property belongs to most other combinations of lime with 
vegetable acid. The acetate of lime is soluble in water, and while alone, 
might be carried off by rains. But if it combines with putrescent matter, 
by chemical affinity, its previous solubility will no longer remain. Sulphate 
of iron (copperas) is easily soluble; but when it forms one of the compo- 
nent parts of ink, it can no longer be separately dissolved by water, or 
taken away from the coloring matter combined with it. In rich limestone 
soils, and some of our best river lands, in which no carbonate of lime now 
remains, we may suppose that its change of form to some other salt of lime 
took place centuries ago. Yet, however scourged and exhausted by cul- 
tivation, these soils still show, as strongly as ever, the qualities which 
were derived from their former calcareous ingredient. When the dark color 
of such soils, their power of absorption, and of holding manures, their friabi- 
lity, and their peculiar fitness for clover and certain other plants, are no 
longer to be distinguished, then, and not before, may the salt of lime be 
considered as lost to the soil. 

But though all persons would probably admit this general proposition, 
that these natural qualities of good soils, including a certain degree of, or 
tendency to productive power, are permanent, (which is but stating in other 
words, that the good effects of calcareous manures are permanent — ) 
still perhaps few would grant the possibility of permanency of effect to 
putrescent manures also, when added thereafter. Yet this latter proposition 
is as legitimate a deduction from the former, as the former proposition is 
from the theory which has been maintained of the action of calcareous ma- 
nures. The attention of the reader is requested to the argument which 
will now be offered to sustain this important deduction. 

We have all been trained to consider farm-yard and stable manures, 
dung, and all vegetable and other putrescent matters, when applied to soils, 
as having temporary effects only ; and whether the effects lasted for but 
the first crop, as on acid sandy soils, or for four, six or even eight years 
on well constituted natural soils, still the effects were truly, as usually con- 
sidered, only for a limited time, and would at some period be totally lost, 
and the ground so manured would return to the same state of less produc- 
tiveness, as of the surrounding land, previously equal and which had re- 
ceived no such manuring. Such views are almost universal ; and the utmost 
that would be claimed by the most zealous and sanguine advocate for ex- 
tending the use of such manures, would be a protracted though still limited 
and temporary duration of effect. And the actual results would always 
accord with these opinions, (and also with my theory of the action of cal- 
careous manures,) both on good and on bad soils, before making them 
more calcareous. All natural soils (not excessively and injuriously calca- 
reous,) have secured by their natural powers and facilities, and have had 
fixed in them, as much alimentary matter as their natural ingredient of lime 
could combine with. If that ingredient had been very small, the soil would 
be poor; if large, then the soil would be rich. But in neither case would 
there be power in the soil to combine with an additioiitil supply of alimen- 
tary manure ; and if such were applied, it would be exhausted and pass 
away, rapidly on the bad soil, and more slowly on the good ; but certainly, 
in the end, on both. 

Again, suppose the soils to be more or less exhausted by scourging cul- 
tivation. Then their actual amount of alimentary matter would have been 
reduced below what their respective shares of lime could combine with 



120 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



and retain, under a state of nature, or of mild tillage. Then, if alimentary 
manures were applied, so much as was required for combination by the 
lime present would be as permanently fixed as if the original fertility had 
never been abstracted ; and any additional quantity and excess of manure, 
not being so combined and fixed, would be totally lost in more or less time, 
as in the previously supposed case. 

Lest these propositions may not appear, because of their novelty, per- 
fectly clear and unquestionable to every reader, an illustration will be 
offered which can scarcely fail to induce their general and ready admission. 
Suppose a cultivator to have two fields, one of bad and poor soil naturally, 
and the other of the best natural quality — and both having been brought 
under cultivation together, and kept under the same rotation of crops and 
other management. Suppose further that the equal and uniform course of 
cropping has been such, (whether taking one or two or three grains crops 
to one year of rest and resuscitation,) that both fields have neither been 
reduced nor increased in average product, since brought under regular 
tillage— and that such average product, when of corn, is equal to 10 bushels 
per acre on the poor, and 50 bushels on the rich soil. Now, these different 
products are derived from the different funds of alimentary and putrescent 
manure originally supplied to the soil by nature, (which were just so much 
as the lime of each soil could combine with,) and, under the supposed 
degrees of exaction and relief counteracting each other under tillage, the 
same rates of product may be obtained for ever. And the yielding of 50 
bushels by the one soil operates no more to reduce its after power of pro- 
duction, than the yield of the other of but one-fifth of that amount of crop. 
The yield from each soil, at and for the time, is certainly so much reduction 
of its productive power; but the recuperative power of each (to seize 
"upon and hold to new supplies for fertilization) is in proportion to the yield : 
and the vegetable growth serving for manure, and atmospherical influences, 
during a year of rest, will continually give to the good soil the renewed 
power of producing again its large crop, as certainly as to the poor soil 
the power of still continuing to produce its small crop. It is not that the 
natural alimentary manure in the soil is not taken away in part, by the 
growth and removal of every crop — but that such waste is continually 
compensated by new acquisitions. And whether such new supplies of 
alimentary matter be furnished in part during every day, or in every year, 
or only during the one term of rest in the whole course of crops, the practi- 
cal result is the same, of the natural or original amount of alimentary ma- 
nure remaining finally undiminished. 

So far as to the absolute permanency of putrescent or alimentary ma- 
nures supplied by nature. Next let us see whether the same reasoning, 
and also experience, so far as yet obtained, do not in like manner prove the 
permanency of putrescent manures applied after calcareous manures. The 
poor soil just presented for illustration, while having its natural alimentary 
ingredient and its natural supply of lime thus balanced and proportioned 
to each other, was supposed to produce at the rate of 10 bushels of corn 
to the acre, and to remain at or near that rate of productive power. 
Suppose then marl to be applied in such quantity as would give enough cal- 
careous earth to combine with twice as much new alimentary matter as the 
soil before held. Suppose further, that the soil so marled is not left to draw 
and store up this now needed stock of alimentary manure by its newly 
increased power, (and as would be done in due time, if under favorable 
circumstances of tillage,) but that so much putrescent manure is applied 
to the soil, gradually and judiciously, as can be combined with and held by 
the supply of calcareous earth ; and that such addition of manure gives to 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 121 

the soil a power to produce 30 bushels of corn. As soon as this combina- 
tion is completely made, the soil is in precisely the same condition as to its 
newly increased rate of product of 30 bushels, as before to that of 10 
bushels ; and the new and larger supply of putrescent manure must be as 
permanent as was the natural and smaller supply. 

But it is not contended that the mere application of vegetable or other 
putrescent manure, under such circumstances, secures the permanency of 
effect of all thus applied, but only of so much as can be and is combined 
with the calcareous earth. And many circumstances may and do usually 
obstruct the immediate and complete combination taking place. To ensure 
the perfect and full result, the intermixture of the calcareous and the pu- 
trescent matters, and in due proportions, must be perfect, and no excess of 
the latter remain any where in the soil ; the putrescent matter must also be 
in the particular state of decomposition (whatever that may be) to enter 
into combination ; and moreover there must be enough and equally diffused 
moisture, without which no chemical combination can take place. Now as 
some and probably all these conditions must necessarily be deficient in 
every case of applying putrescent matters to marled land, it must follow 
that much of the manure must remain uncombined for some length of 
time ; and during that time is as liable to be wasted and exhausted as if 
in any other soil. And hence, and the more as the dressing is lavish, farm- 
yard and stable manure so applied must be expected to yield more for the 
first and second year, while the excess is wasting, than afterwards. But 
after this first waste and exhaustion has been suffered, whatever of the 
manure remains to the soils, say for the next ensuing rotation at latest, 
must be fully combined with and fixed in the soil, and will be permanent 
for all future time, under proper, judicious, and also the most profitable 
course of cropping. This first waste probably cannot be entirely prevent- 
ed ; but can be much lessened by care. And to this end, putrescent ma- 
nure should not be applied heavily at once, but lightly, and repeated subse- 
quently, and should be well scattered and equally diffused over the ground. 
Its subsequent decomposition being slow, and the products being gradually 
as well as surely presented to the lime diffused previously throughout 
the soil, will also tend to remove as much as possible of the manure from 
the condition of being fleeting and wasting, to that of being fixed and 
permanent. 

Next let us see how far facts and experience sustain this reasoning. It 
is readily admitted that the time since marling was commenced in Virginia, 
and since correct views of the action of calcareous manures were enter- 
tained and acted on in any case, has been too short to furnish decided 
proofs. But so far as accurate facts can thus be referred to, they fully 
sustain the foregoing doctrine, not only of the permanency of calcareous 
manures, but also of putrescent manures in combination therewith. Some 
of these facts will be mentioned generally. 

However in accordance with the theory of the action of calcareous 
manures, this absolute permanency of effect given thereby to putrescent 
manures was not at first counted on or expected, and was not known 
until it was forced on my observation by long continued results. My 
own practice is not only the oldest, but is all that I can refer to for proofs. 
And until all my marling was completed, and indeed for some time after, 
but little care was used by me to make and apply putrescent manures. 
This culpable neglect was the result of the habits caused by the disappoint- 
ments and losses experienced in manuring long before. From the same 
ignorance and carelessness in this respect, no experiments on the durability 
of putrescent manures were made until long after, and then injudiciously. 



J 22 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

Thus, in the three experiments 4, 9, and 11, the putrescent manure applied 
was in quantity much too great for the calcareous earth to combine with at 
once, even if the recent and irregular scattering of both kinds of manure 
had not prevented their meeting in proper proportions. For like reasons, of 
all the putrescent manures applied on the farm, and since larger quantities 
have been used, there is much more of early than continued effect. Still, so 
far as known and believed, there is always more or less of abiding effect, 
and which I infer will be permanent. 

But wider scope for observation has been afforded in the increasing pro- 
ductiveness of all the marled lands, kept under what was deemed not too 
frequent tillage. Neither has the tillage been always mild, nor the rotation 
uniform, and latterly the grain crops have been made more frequent 
than before, and much more grazing permitted. Still, even where no 
prepared putrescent manures have ever been applied, and putrescent mat- 
ters have been furnished only from the growth of the land itself during its 
share of rest in each course of crops, there has been a regular increase of 
productiveness of the grain crops, in every successive rotation. In one 
connected clearing, of what I found as poor forest land, now making 85 
acres, the marling was commenced in 1818, and has been continued, as the 
successive clearings extended, to 1841. The earliest effects of the applica- 
tions were always satisfactory, but they have regularly and largely increased 
with time. Thus, when under the last crop of corn, (in 1839,) the crop on 
the last finished marling, though perhaps thereby nearly doubled in product, 
was obviously and considerably less than that of four to six years earlier — 
that again as inferior to that of the marling of ten to fifteen years — and the 
crop on the marling of 1821 and earlier, decidedly the best of all, under 
circumstances otherwise equal. For the limited time of 23 years, and 
without any careful and accurate experiment or observation having been 
made for this special object, there could not well be stronger practical 
proof of the permanency of the vegetable manures stored up by the marl. 

If we keep in mind the mode by which calcareous manure acts, its 
effects may be anticipated for a much longer time than my experience ex- 
tends. Let us trace the supposed effects, from the causes, on an acid soil 
kept under meliorating culture. As soon as applied, the calcareous earth 
combines with all the acid then present, and to that extent is changed to 
the vegetable salt of lime. The remaining calcareous earth continues to 
take up the after formations of acid, and (together with the salt so pro- 
duced) to fix putrescent manures, as fast as these substances are present- 
ed, until all the lime has been combined with acid, and all their product 
is combined with putrescent matter. Both those actions then cease. Dur- 
ing all the time necessary for those changes, the soil has been regularly 
increasing in productiveness ; and it may be supposed that before their 
completion, the product had risen from ten to thirty bushels of corn to the 
acre. The soil has then become neutral. It can never lose its ability 
(under the mild rotation supposed) of producing thirty bushels— but it has 
no power to rise above that product. Vegetable food continues to form, 
but is mostly wasted, because the salt of lime is already combined with as 
much as it can act on ; and whatever excess of vegetable matter remains 
in the soil, is kept useless by acid also newly formed, and left free and 
noxious as before the application of calcareous earth. But though this 
excess of acid may balance and keep useless the excess of vegetable mat- 
ter, it cannot affect the previously fixed fertility, nor lessen the power of 
the soil to yield its then maximum product of thirty bushels. In this state 
of things, sorrel may again begin to grow, and its return may be taken as 
notice that a new marling is needed, and will afford additional profit, in the 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. ]23 

same manner as before, by destroying the last formed acid, and fixing the 
last supply of vegetable matter. Thus perhaps five or ten bushels more 
may be added to the previous product, and a power given to the soil gra- 
dually to increase as much more, before it will stop again for similar rea- 
sons, at a second maximum product of forty or fifty bushels. I pretend 
not to fix the time necessary for the completion of one or more of these 
gradual changes ; but as the termination of each, and the consequent ad- 
ditional marling, will add new profits, it ought to be desired by the farmer, 
instead of his wishing that his first labor of marling each acre may also 
be the last required. Every permanent addition of five bushels of corn, to 
the previous average crop, will more than repay the heaviest expenses that 
have yet been encountered in marling. But whether a second application 
of marl is made or not, I cannot imagine such a consequence, under judi- 
cious tillage, as the actual decrease of the product once obtained. My 
earliest marled land has been severely cropped, compared to the rotation 
supposed above, and yet has continued to improve, though at a slow rate. 
The part first marled, in 1818, had only four years of rest in the next fif- 
teen ; and yielded nine crops of grain, one of cotton, and one year clo- 
ver twice mowed. This piece, however, besides being sown with gypsum, 
(with little benefit,) once received a light cover of rotted corn-stalk ma- 
nure. The balance of the same piece of land (Exp. 1.) was marled for the 
crop of 1821 — has borne the same treatment since, and has had no other 
manure, except gypseous earth once, (in 1830,) which acted well. These 
periods of twelve and fifteen years (even though now extended to and 
confirmed by nine years more of experience) are very short to serve as 
grounds to decide on the eternal duration of a manure. But it can scarce- 
ly be believed that the effect of any temporary manure, would not have 
been somewhat abated by such a course of severe tillage. Under milder 
treatment, there can be no doubt that there would have been much greater 
improvement. 

If subjected to a long course of the most severe cultivation, a soil could 
not be deprived of its calcareous ingredient, whether natural or artificial : 
but though still calcareous, it would be, in the end, reduced to barrenness, 
by the exhaustion of its vegetable matter. Under the usual system of ex- 
hausting cultivation, marl certainly improves the product of acid soils, and 
may continue to add to the previous amount of crop, for a considerable 
time ; yet the theory of its action instructs us, that the ultimate result of 
marling, under such circumstances, must be the more complete destruction 
of the land, by enabling it to yield all its vegetable food to growing plants, 
which would have been prevented by the continuance of its former acid 
state. An acid soil yielding only five bushels of corn may contain enough 
food for plants to bring fifteen bushels — and its production will be raised to 
that mark, as soon as marling sets free its dormant powers. But a calca- 
reous soil reduced to a product of five bushels, can furnish food for no 
more, and nothing but an expensive application of putrescent manures, can 
render it worth the labor of cultivation. Thus it is, that soils, the improve- 
ment of which is the most hopeless without calcareous manures, will be 
the most certainly improved with profit by their use. 



]24 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF MARLING. 

Proposition 5 — concluded. 

At this time there are but few persons among us who doubt the great 
benefit to be derived from the use of marl : and many of those who ten 
years ago deemed the practice the result of folly, and a fit subject for ridi- 
cule, now give that manure credit for virtues which it certainly does not 
possess ; and from their manner of applying it seem to believe it a univer- 
sal cure for sterility.* Such erroneous views have been a principal cause 
of the many injudicious and even injurious applications of marl. It is as 
necessary to moderate the ill-founded expectations which many entertain, 
as to excite the too feeble hopes of others. 

The improvement caused by marling, and its permanency, have been 
established beyond question. Still the improvement may be paid for too 
dearly— and the propriety of the practice must depend entirely on the 
amount of its clear profits, ascertained by fair estimates of the expenses 
incurred. 

With those who attempt any calculations of this kind, it is very common 
to set out on the mistaken ground that the expense of marling should bear 
some proportion to the selling price of the land : and without in the least 
under-rating the effects of marl, they conclude that the improvement cannot 
justify an expense of six dollars on an acre of land that would not pre- 
viously sell for four dollars. Such a conclusion would be correct if the 
land were held as an article for sale, and intended to be disposed of as soon 
as possible : as the expense in that case might not be returned in imme- 
diate profit, and certainly would not be added to the price of the land by 
the purchaser, under present circumstances. But if the land is held as a 
possession of any permanency, its previous price, or its subsequent valua- 
tion, lias no bearing whatever on the amount which it may be profitable to 
expend for its improvement. Land that sells at four dollars, is often too 
dear at as many cents, because its product will not pay the expense of cul- 
tivation. But if by laying out for the improvement ten dollars, or even 
one hundred dollars to the acre, the average increased annual profit would 
certainly and permanently be worth ten per cent, on that cost of improve- 
ment, then the expenditure would be highly expedient and profitable. We 
are so generally influenced by a rage for extending our domain, that ano- 
ther farm is often bought, stocked and cultivated, when a liberal estimate 
of its expected products, would not show an annual clear profit of three 
per cent. : and any one would mortgage his estate to buy another thousand 
acres, that was supposed fully capable of yielding ten per cent, on its price. 
Yet the advantage would be precisely the same, if the principal money was 
used to enrich the land already in possession, (without regard to its extent, 
or previous value,) with equal assurance of its yielding the same amount 
of profit. 

Nothing is more general, or has had a worse influence on the state of 
agriculture, than the desire to extend our cultivation and landed posses- 
sions. One of the consequences of this disposition has been to give an 
artificial value to the poorest land, considered merely as so much territory, 

* This was in 1881, when these remarks were first printed. They are less applicable 
now than formerly. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE. J25 

while various causes have concurred to depress the price of all good soils 
much below their real worth. Whatever a farm will sell for fixes its value 
as merchandise ; but by no means is it a fair measure of its value as per- 
manent farming capital. 

The true value of land, and also of any permanent improvements to 
land, 1 would estimate in the following manner. Ascertain as nearly as 
possible the average clear and permanent annual income, and the land is 
worth as much money as would securely yield that amount of income, in the 
form of interest — which may be considered as worth six per cent. For exam- 
ple, if a field brings ten dollars average value of crops to the acre, in the 
course of a four-shift rotation, and the average expense of every kind neces- 
sary to carry on the cultivation is also ten dollars, then the land yields no- 
thing, and is worth nothing. If the average clear profit was but two dollars 
and forty cents in the term, or only sixty cents a year, it would raise the 
value of the land to ten dollars ; and if six dollars could be made annually, 
clear of all expense, it is equally certain that one hundred dollars would be 
the fair value of the acre. Yet if lands of precisely these rates of profit were 
offered for sale at this time, the poorest would probably sell for four dollars, 
and the richest for less than thirty dollars. In like manner, if any field, that 
paid the expense of cultivation before, has its average annual net product 
increased six dollars for each acre, by some permanent improvement, the 
value thereby added to the field is one hundred dollars the acre, without 
regard to its former worth. Let the cost and value of marling be com- 
pared by this rule, and it will be found that the capital laid out in that mode 
of improvement will seldom return an annual interest of less than twenty 
per cent.— that it will more often reach to forty— and sometimes exceed one 
hundred per cent, of annual and permanent interest on the investment. 
The application of this rule for the valuation of such improvements will 
raise them to such an amount, that the magnitude of the sum may be 
deemed a sufficient contradiction of my estimates. But before this mode 
of estimating values is rejected, merely for the supposed absurdity of an 
acid soil being considered as raised from one dollar, or nothing, to thirty 
dollars, or more, per acre, by a single marling, let it at least be examined 
and its fallacy exposed. 

If the reader will accompany me through some detailed estimates of va- 
lues, and arithmetical calculations, in regard to the grounds of which we 
cannot differ, the truth of the result which I claim will be made manifest, 
however startling and monstrous they may appear to some persons at first 
glance. 

Assuming as sound and unquestionable the grounds for estimating the 
intrinsic value of lands, as stated generally in the last paragraph, let us illus- 
trate the position more particularly. The principle of valuation is that the 
land is worth to its proprietor and cultivator such sum of money as would 
yield in annual interest the same amount as the net annual product of the 
land, after paying for all labor, attention, expenses and risks. Further, to 
simplify the calculation, and also to suit the course of culture to the more 
general practice of the country, let us suppose the land in question to be 
cultivated under the ordinary three-shift rotation, of 1st, corn, 2nd, wheat, (or 
oats,) 3rd, at rest, with no grazing when the land is poor, and with but par- 
tial and moderate grazing (or mowing of clover) when improved or rich. 

Then suppose a field of the poor and thin soil most common in lower 
Virginia, under this treatment for some years previously, to produce, on 
the general average, 10 bushels of corn to the acre, and 5 bushels of wheat, 
or its equivalent value of oats; and the value of the corn, at the barn, 
to be 50 cents the bushel, and of the wheat $1. And let the joint and total 

10 



J26 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

expenses of preparation, tillage, seed, harvesting, thrashing, &c, for 
market, (or for home use,) and of superintendence and care of both the 
corn and wheat or oat crops, be counted as being over and above the value 
of the offal (stalks, straw, &c.) of the crops, by $10 for the two years. Then 
the full statement will be as follows : 
First year, product in corn per acre, 10 bushels, at 50 cents - $5 

Second year, wheat, 5 bushels, at $1, 5 

Third year, no crop or profit, and no expense, .... 



Total product of the three-years' rotation, - - - $10 

Cost of cultivation, &c, of the crop, 10 

Net profit, 00 

However wretched may be the foregoing exhibition of products, it will 
be admitted to be abundantly liberal by all persons acquainted with lower 
and middle Virginia, for a very large proportion of the cultivated lands. 
Yet such lands might sell at prices varying from $3 to $6 the acre, and that 
without a view to their being improved, and even before calcareous ma* 
nures were thought of as means for improvement. Yet the conclusion 
is evident, that such land, no matter what may be its then selling price, 
(or speculative appreciation caused by the effects of paper-money and 
fraudulent bank issues,) is worth not one cent for cultivation, or for the be- 
nefit of the proprietor and cultivator. 

Next, suppose the land in question to be properly marled, and at the un- 
usually heavy expense of $7 the acre. This rate is more than double the 
usual expense for a full and sufficient dressing, when the marl is obtainec" 
on the farm where applied. Suppose also that the increase of products, 
as shown in the second course of the rotation, (beginning three years after 
the application,) is equal to 100 per cent, on the production previous to 
marling. This estimate is quite low enough, as all experience has shown. 
Upon such land, and so treated, this degree of increase may very often be 
obtained upon the first crop of the first course ; and, even if no auxiliary 
means of enriching be afterwards used, the rate of increase will be more and 
more for each of sundry succeeding courses of crops thereafter. Then let 
us test the value of the returns by figures as before : 
First year, product in corn per acre, 20 bushels, at 50 cents, - $10 

Second year, wheat, 10 bushels, at $1, 10 

Third year, clover most of it left as manure to the land, and no 

profit counted here, ........ 00 



20 
Total expenses of cultivation, &c, as before, in two years, - 10 

Net product, or clear profit of cultivation in the term of three 

years, $10 

This is all so much increase of net annual product upon the previous 
rate; and the amount, $3.33 yearly, is the interest, (at 6 per cent.,) of 
something more than a capital of $55. And therefore, according to these 
grounds of estimate, $55 per acre is the increase of intrinsic value given 
to the land by marling alone, or $48 the clear gain made by the operation, 
after deducting $7 paid for the marling of the land; and this without regard 
to what might have been its previous intrinsic value, or its former or its 
present market price. The more rigidly this mode of estimate is scruti- 
nized, the more manifestly true will be found the results. The premises as- 
sumed, in the supposed effects and profits of marling, will not be objected to 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 127 

(unless as being too low) by any person who is well informed by practice 
and experience. 

But there is one important apparent omission of a proper charge in the 
last statement of expenses. This is the increase of labor of tillage, har- 
vesting, &c, caused by the crop being doubled in quantity. This is cer- 
tainly a fair ground of charge ; and, if estimated alone, would serve to 
reduce considerably the statement of increased net product, and conse- 
quently of increased value of land. But there were also omitted sundry 
items of increased production, which together would undoubtedly much 
more than compensate for the increase of labor in tilling a deeper and 
richer soil, and in harvesting, removing and preparing for sale or use, 
a double quantity of crop. These items of gain are, first, the additional 
offal, in corn-stalks, fodder and shucks, and wheat or oat straw, and chaff — 
second, the limited proportion of clover grazed or mowed — and third, the 
further gradual increase of crops, in subsequent time. Probably the first 
class of items alone would balance the increased expense of labor ; if not, 
the addition of the second (the clover) certainly would be enough. And 
if that be doubted, the subsequent annual increase upon the first doubling 
of the crops (which only is estimated above) will not only furnish a fund 
to meet any such deficiency, but also will greatly, and beyond any calcula- 
tion here attempted, augment the whole profit of marling, and consequently 
the intrinsic value of the land to the proprietor. 

I admit the practical difficulty of applying this rule for estimating the 
value of land, or of its improvement, however certain may be its theore- 
tical truth. It is not possible to fix on the precise clear profit of any farm 
to its owner and cultivator ; and any error made in these premises is in- 
creased sixteen and two-third times in the estimate of value founded on 
them. Still we may approximate the truth with most certainty by using 
this guide. The early increase of crop from marling will, in most cases, be 
an equal increase of clear profit, (for the subsequent improvement and the 
additional offal will surely pay for the increase of labor— ) and it is not very 
difficult to fix a value for that actual increase of crop, and thereby to esti- 
mate the value of the improvement, as farming capital.* 

This mode of valuing land, under a different form, is universally re- 
ceived as correct in England. Cultivation there is carried on almost en- 
tirely by tenants ; and the annual rent which any farm brings, on a long 
lease, fixes beyond question what is its annual clear profit to the owner. 
The price, or value of land, is generally estimated at so many " years' pur- 
chase," which means as many years' rent as will return the purchaser's 
money. There, the interest of money being lower, increases the value of 
land according to this mode of estimation ; and it is generally sold as high 
as twenty years' purchase. My estimate is less favorable for raising the 
value of our lands, as it fixes them at sixteen and two-thirds years' pur- 
chase, according to our higher rate of interest on money. 

But though this rule for estimating the true value of land, and of the 
improvements made by marling, may be unquestionable in theory, still a 
practical objection will be presented by the well known fact that the income 
and profits of farmers are not increased in proportion to such improve- 
ments, nor is there found such a vast disproportion as this rule of estimat- 
ing values would show, between the profits of the tillers of poor and of 
rich lands. These positions are admitted to be generally well founded — 
but it is denied that they invalidate the previous estimates. A farmer may, 

* No degree of uncertainty in the application, however, detracts from its truth. Foi 
if the annual average net profit derived from marling be considered as an unknown quan- 
tity (x), it is not therefore the less certain that x X 16§ = the increased intrinsic value of 
the land. 



128 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

and generally does, obtain less gross product from a large or a rich farm, 
than his more necessitous, and therefore more attentive and economical 
neighbor gets from a smaller or poorer farm, in proportion to the producing 
power of each ; and even the same persons, when young and needy, have 
often made more profit according to their means, than afterwards when 
relieved from want, and having lands increased to a double power of 
production. These, and similar facts, however general, are only examples 
of the obvious truth, that the profits of land depend principally on the in- 
dustry, economy, and good management of the cultivator ; and that many 
a farmer, who can manage well a small or poor farm, is more deficient in 
industry, economy, or the increased degree of knowledge required, when 
possessed of much more abundant resources. In short, if these considera- 
tions were to direct or influence our estimates, we should not be comparing 
and estimating the value of lands, but the value of the care and industry 
bestowed on their management by their proprietors. 

Another objector may ask, " If any poor land is raised in value, (accord- 
ing to this estimate,) from one dollar to thirty, by marling, would a purchaser 
make a judicious investment of his capital, by buying this improved land 
at thirty dollars]" I would answer in the affirmative, if the view was 
confined to this particular means of investing farming capital. The pur- 
chaser would get a clear interest of six per cent. — which is always a good 
return from land, and is twice as much as all lower Virginia now yields. 
But if such a purchase is compared with other means of acquiring land so 
improved, it would be extremely injudicious ; because thirty dollars expend- 
ed in purchasing and marling suitable land, would serve both to acquire and 
improve, to as high a value, five or six acres. 

Estimates of the expenses required for marling are commonly erected 
on as improper grounds as those of its profits. We never calculate the 
cost of any old practice. We are content to clear wood-land that after- 
wards will not pay for the expense of tillage — to keep under the plough 
land reduced to five bushels of corn to the acre— to build and continue to 
repair miles of useless and perishable fences — to make farm-yard manure, 
(though not much of this fault,) and apply it to acid soils — without once 
calculating whether we lose or gain by any of these operations. But let 
any new practice be proposed, and then every one begins to count its cost ; 
and that on such erroneous premises, that if applied to every kind of farm 
labor, the estimate would prove that the most fertile land known could 
scarcely defray the expenses of its cultivation. 

According to estimates made with much care and accuracy,, the cost of 
an uncommonly expensive job of marling, 4036 bushels in quantity, in 
1824, amounted to $5.35 the acre, for 598 bushels of marl. This quantity 
was much too great; 400 bushels would have been quite enough for safety 
and profit, and would have reduced the whole expense, including every 
necessary preparation, to $3.50 the acre. The earth which was taken off, 
to uncover the bed of marl, was considerably thicker than the marl itself. 
The road from the pit ascended hills amounting to fifty feet of perpendicu- 
lar elevation — and the average distance to the field was 847 yards. The 
full estimates of these operations will be presented in the next ehapter. 

It is impossible to carry on marling to advantage, or with any thing 
like economy, unless it is made a regular business, to be continued through- 
out the year or a specified portion of it, by a laboring force devoted to that 
purpose, and not allowed to be withdrawn for any other. Instead of pro- 
ceeding on this plan, most persons, who have begun to marl, attempt it in 
the short intervals of leisure afforded between their different farming 
operations — and without lessening for this purpose the extent of their usual 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. J29 

cultivation. Let us suppose that the preparations have been made, and, on 
the first opportunity, a farmer commences marling with zeal and spirit. But 
every new labor is attended by causes of difficulty and delay, and a full 
share of these will be found in the first few days of marling. The road is 
soft, for want of previous use, and, if the least wet, soon becomes miry. 
The horses, unaccustomed to carting, balk at the hills, or only carry half 
loads. Other difficulties occur from the awkwardness of the laborers and 
the inexperience of their master, and still more from the usual unwilling- 
ness of his overseer to devote any labor to improvements which are not 
expected to add to the crop of that year. Before matters can get straight, 
the leisure time is at an end ; and the work is stopped, and the road and pit 
are left to get out of order, before making another attempt, some six months 
after, when all the same vexatious difficulties are again to be encountered. 

If only a single horse is employed in drawing marl throughout the 
year, at the moderate allowance of two hundred working days, and one 
hundred bushels carried out for each, his year's work will amount to 
twenty thousand bushels, or enough for more than sixty acres. This alone 
would be a great object effected. But, besides, this plan would allow the 
profitable employment of any amount of additional labor. "When, at any 
time, other teams and laborers could be spared to assist, though for only a 
few days, every thing is ready for them to go immediately to work. The 
pit is drained, the road is firm, and the field marked off for the loads. In 
this way much labor may be obtained in the course of the year, from 
teams that would otherwise be idle, and laborers whose other employments 
would be of but little importance. The spreading of marl on the field is 
a job that will always be ready to employ any spare labor; and throwing 
off the covering earth from an intended digging of marl may be done 
when rain, snow, or severe cold has rendered the earth unfit for almost 
every other kind of labor. 

Another interesting question respecting the expense of this improvement 
is, to what distance from the pit may marl be profitably carried ? If the 
amount of labor necessary to carry it half a mile is known, it is easy to 
calculate how much more will be required for two or three miles. The 
cost of teams and drivers is in proportion to the distance travelled, but the 
pit and field labors are not affected by that circumstance. At present, when 
so much poor land, abundantly supplied with fossil shells, may be bought 
at from two dollars to four dollars the acre, a farmer had better buy and 
marl a new farm, than to move marl even two miles to his land in posses- 
sion* But this would be merely declining one considerable profit, for the 
purpose of taking another much greater. Whenever the value of marl shall 
be properly understood, and our lands are priced according to their improve- 
ment, or their capability of being improved from that source, as must 
be the case hereafter, then this choice of advantages will no longer be 
offered. Then rich marl will be profitably carted miles from the pits, and 

* This statement of prices, though correct when first published, is no longer so. 
Some little land may yet be so low ; but, in general, the prices of lands having marl 
have already advanced from 50 to 100 per cent, within 15 years. The lowest of the 
above named prices was much above the former minimum rate. The various tracts of 
land in James City county belonging to Mrs. Paradise's large estate, when sold 
some 12 or 14 years ago, brought prices that averaged only about $1.25 the acre. Most 
of the lands were poor, but easily improvable, and all having plenty of rich marl. One 
of the tracts of that description, of 800 acres, was bought at 75 cents the acre ; and 
after being held for three or four years, without being in any respect improved, was 
resold by the purchaser for $2.50 the acre. Where marl has been actually applied, the 
increased intrinsic or productive value of the land always considerably exceeds the in- 
creased market price, even though the latter may be already doubled or tripled. 



|30 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

perhaps conveyed by water as far as it may be needed. A bushel of such 
marl as the bed on James river, described page 92, is as rich in calcareous 
earth alone, as a bushel of slaked lime will be after it becomes carbonated, 
and the greater weight of the first is a less disadvantage for water car- 
riage, than the price of the latter. Farmers on James river, who have 
used lime as manure to great extent and advantage, might more cheaply 
have moved rich marl twenty miles by water, as it would cost nothing but 
the labor of digging and transportation. 

Within the short time that has elapsed since the first publication of the 
foregoing passages in the first edition of this essay, the transportation of 
marl by water carriage has been commenced on James river, and has been 
carried on with more facility and at less expense than was anticipated. 
The farmers who may profit by this new mode of using marl will be in- 
debted to the enterprise of C. H. Minge, esq., of Charles City, for having 
made the first full and satisfactory experiment of the business on a large 
scale. 

Since the publication of the last edition, the transportation of marl by 
water-carriage has been carried on much more extensively. But very re- 
cently another source for obtaining calcareous manures has been opened to 
the farmers of lower Virginia, which they think cheaper than either trans- 
porting marl or burning shells, and they are availing of it to great, extent. 
This is northern stone-lime, which is brought in bulk, ready slaked, and 
sold by the vessel load at prices varying from 8 to 10 cents the bushel. 
Slaked lime, even if pure, from its extreme lightness, cannot be as much to 
the bushel as rich marl contains of pure lime, even though the marl may 
have 30 per cent, of other earths. Therefore the lime is much the most costly, 
as marl may be procured and transported at from 3 to 5 cents the bushel. 
"Still, the lime is so much more readily obtained in large quantities, and a farm 
can by that means be so much more speedily covered, that the purchase of 
lime is often the more desirable and also the more profitable operation of 
the two. 

In making this improvement, more than in any other business, " time is 
money." Marling is usually effected by the farmer's labor, whereas the ex- 
pense of liming is mostly in the purchase. By the use of water-borne marl, 
few farmers could dress a fourth of their tillage field in a year, whereas by 
purchasing lime the whole field might be limed, and the whole farm cover- 
ed in one-fourth of the time required for marling. If then the lime were 
even thrice the cost of marl, (for equal quantities of pure lime,) it would 
still be the cheapest mode of improvement, because yielding its products 
in one-fourth of the time required for marling. The difference of amount 
of net product in the first crop, between an acre marled or limed, and 
another acre not so improved, would usually pay the cost of marling or 
liming the acre. Therefore, on every acre cultivated by any farmer, and 
not marled or limed until after making the crop, there is as much loss of 
crop suffered by the delay, as would have paid for making the improve- 
ment. 

The objections to carrying marl unusual distances, admitted above, 
apply merely to improvements proposed for field culture. But it would be 
profitable, even under existing circumstances, for rich marl to be carried 
five miles by land, or one hundred miles by water, for the purpose of being 
applied to gardens, or other land kept under perpetual tillage, and re- 
ceiving frequent and heavy coverings of putrescent manure. In such 
cases, independent of the direct benefit which the calcareous earth might 
afford to the crops, its power of combining with putrescent matters, and 
preventing their waste, would be of the utmost importance. If the soil 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE 



131 



is acid, the making it calcareous will enable half the usual supplies of 
manure to be more effective and durable than the whole had been. There 
are other uses for marl, about dwelling houses and in towns, which should 
induce its being carried much farther than mere agricultural purposes 
would warrant. I allude to the use of calcareous earth in preserving pu- 
trescent matters, and thereby promoting cleanliness and health. This 
important subject will hereafter be separately considered. 

Either lime or good marl may hereafter be profitably distributed over a 
remote strip of poor land, by means of the rail-road now constructing from 
Petersburg to the Roanoke [1831]; provided the proprietors do not imitate 
the over greedy policy of the legislature of Virginia in imposing tolls on 
manures passing through the James river canal. If there were no object 
whatever in view but to draw the greatest possible income from tolls on 
canals and roads, true policy would direct that all manures should pass 
from town to country toll free. Every bushel of lime, marl, or gypsum 
thus conveyed, would be the means of bringing back, in future time, more 
than as much wheat or corn; and there would be an actual gain in tolls, 
besides the twenty-fold greater increase to the wealth of individuals and 
the state. Wood-ashes, after being deprived of their potash, have calca- 
reous earth, and a smaller proportion of phosphate of lime, as their only 
fertilizing ingredients ; and both together do not commonly make more 
than there is of calcareous earth in the same bulk of good marl. Yet 
drawn ashes have been purchased largely from our soap factories, at five 
cents the bushel, and carried by sea to be sold for manure to the farmers of 
Long Island. Except for the proportion of phosphate of lime which they 
contain, drawn ashes are simply artificial marl— more fit for immediate 
action, by being finely divided, but weaker in amount of calcareous earth 
than our best beds of fossil shells. 

The argument in support of the several propositions which have been 
discussed through so many chapters, is now concluded. However un- 
skilfully, I flatter myself that it has been effectually used ; and that the 
general deficiency in our soils of calcareous earth, the necessity of supply- 
ing it, the profit by that means to be derived, and the high importance of 
all these considerations, have been established too firmly to be shaken by 
either arguments or facts. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ESTIMATES OF THE COST OF LABOR APPLIED TO MARLING. 

Before we can estimate with any truth the expense of improving land 
by marling, it is necessary to fix the fair cost of every kind of labor ne- 
cessary for the purpose, and for a length of time not less than one year. 
We very often hear guesses of how much a day's labor of a man, a horse, 
or a wagon and team, may be worth— and all are wide of the truth, be- 
cause they are made on wrong premises, or no premises whatever. The 
only correct method is to reduce every kind of labor to its elements — and 
to fix the cost of every particular necessary to furnish it. This I shall 
attempt ; and if my estimates are erroneous in any particular, other persons 
better informed may easily correct my calculation in that respect, and make 
the necessary allowance on the final amount. Thus, even my mistakes in 



132 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



the grounds of these estimates, will not prevent true and valuable results 
being derived from them. 

The following estimates were made in 1828, according to the prices of 
that year. I shall make no alteration in any of the sums, because there is 
no considerable difference at this time, (January 1832,) and the least altera- 
tion would make it necessary to change the after calculations founded on 
them. But no one estimate will suit for years of different prices. If any 
one desires to know the value of labor when corn (for example) is higher 
or lower, he must ascertain the difference in that item, and add or deduct, 
so as to correct the error. 



Cost of the labor of a negro man in 1828. 



Hire for the year, payable at the end, ... 
Food— 19^ bushels of corn at 40 cents, 

Add 10 per cent, for waste in keeping, 

Meat and fish, &c. 

Interest for one year on $17 58, paid for food, 

Clothing— 6 yards coarse woollen cloth, at 50 cents, 
12 yards cotton, for summer clothes and two 

shirts, at 12 cents, 
Blanket at $ 1 50, once in two years— yearly, 
Shoes and mending, 

Taxes— State, 47 cents— county 47— poor 33— road, 

suppose 1 dollar, 
His share of expense of quarters, fuel, and 

sending to mill, 
Nursing when sick, (exclusive of medical aid,) 



7 


80 
78 






9 


00 










$17 


58 






1 


05 






3 


00 






1 


44 
75 






2 


50 



$38 00 



18 63 



7 19 



2 27 

4 50 
1 50 



8 27 



$72 09 
Add 20 per cent, on the whole of the above for cost 
of superintendence, waste, wanton damage 
to stock, tools, &c. and thefts, 14 41 

Total expense per year, , $86 50 

Time lost— Sundays and holidays, 58 days 
Bad weather and half 

holidays, suppose 20 
Sickness, suppose 10 

Making in all 88 - 

From 365, deduct 88, leaves 277 working days ; which makes the cost 
of each working day 3 1 1 cents. 

The hire was fixed at the average price obtained that year for ten or 
twelve young men hired out at the highest bids, for field labor. According 
to the established custom, all the expenses of medical attendance, and loss 
of time from the death of a slave occurring when he is hired, are paid, or 
deducted from the hire by the owner, and therefore are omitted in this es- 
timate. By supposing the slave to be hired by his employer, instead of 
being owned, the calculation is made more simple, and therefore more correct. 



133 



$12 


00 


12 


95 


6 


50 


7 


19 


7 


73 


$46 


37 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

Cost of the labor of a negro woman. 

Hire for the year, 

Food, 

Clothing, blanket, and shoes, 

Taxes, quarters, fuel, mill, nursing, &c. .... 

Add 20 per cent, as before, for superintendence, &c, 

Total yearly cost, 

Suppose lost time, 100 days, leaves working days 265, at 17 J cents for 
each. 

Nearly all the women who are usually hired out are wanted by persons 
having few or no other slaves, as cooks, or for some other employment at 
which they are more useful than at field labor— and their price is nearer 
fifteen dollars in these cases. But when there is no demand for such pur- 
poses, women for field labor will not bring more than twelve dollars. 

A boy of twelve or thirteen would hire for more than the foregoing 
estimate of the hire of a woman, but would not lose half the time from 
sickness and bad weather, and therefore may be supposed to cost the same 
per day, or seventeen and a third cents. A girl of fourteen or fifteen years, 
for similar reasons, may be put at the same price. 

Cost of the labor of a horse. 

First cost of a good work horse, $80 00— supposed to 

last five years at work, makes the yearly ivear, - $16 00 
Interest for one year on $80 00-$4 80— tax, 12 cents, 4 92 

$20 92 



20 bbls. of corn at $2 00-3,500 lbs. of fodder at 50 

cents the hundred, $57 50 

Add 10 per cent, for waste in keeping, - - - 5 75 



Interest on $63 25, for one year, .... $3 79 

Share of yearly expense for corn-house, ... 47 



63 25 
4 26 



Total yearly cost, $88 43 



Lost time, 98 days, leaves 267 working days, at 33 cents nearly. 

A mule eats less corn than a horse, but more hay, and lives longer, and 
may be considered as costing one-fifth less, or yearly cost, $'70 00, and 
daily, 26 £ cents. 

A tumbrel for marling, will cost when new, £25 00 
It will last two years, or (what is the same thing) if that sum will 

pay for all repairs, for two years, its wear per year, is - 8 12 50 

Interest on $25 00 for a year, - - * I 50 



Cost per year * ,$14 00 



And at 267 working days— cost per day live cents. 

In the estimate of the cost of horse labor, no charge is made for attend- 
ance, because that is part of the labor of the driver, and forms part of 
his expense. No charge is made for grazing, because enough corn and hay 

17 



|34 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

are allowed for every day in the year— and when grass is part of his food, 
more than as much in value is saved in his dry food. No charge is made 
for stable or litter, as the manure made is supposed to compensate those 
expenses. 

It may be supposed that the prices fixed for corn, and fodder or hay, ai"e 
too low for an average. Such is not my opinion. The price is fixed at 
the beginning of the year, when it is always comparatively low, because it 
is too soon for purchasers to keep shelled corn in bulk, and the market is 
glutted. Besides, the allowance for waste during the year's use (10 per 
cent.) makes the actual price equal to two dollars and twenty cents on 
July 1st. The nominal country price of corn in January is almost always 
on credit — and small debts for corn are the latest and worst paid of all. 
The farmer who can consume any additional portion of his crop, in employ- 
ing profitable labor, becomes his own best customer. The corn supposed 
to be used, by these estimates, is transferred on the first of January, with- 
out even the trouble of shelling or measuring, from A. B. corn-seller, to A. 
B. marler, and instantly paid for. Two dollars per barrel at that early 
time, and obtained with as little trouble, from any purchaser, would be a 
better regular sale than the average of prices and payments have afforded 
for the last eight years. 

Cost of marling, founded on the foregoing estimates of the cost of labor. 

From the beginning of November, 1823, to the 31st of May, 1824, a re- 
gular force, of two horses and suitable hands, was employed in marling on 
Coggins Foint, on every working day, unless prevented by bad weather, 
wet and soft roads, or some pressing labor of other kinds. The same two 
'horses were used, without any change, and indeed they had drawn the 
greater part of all the marl carried out on the farm, since 1818. The best 
of the two was seventeen years old— both of middle size, and both worse 
than any of my other horses, which were kept at ploughing. 

The following estimates were made on a connected portion of this time 
and labor, and upon my own personal observation and notes of the work, 
from the beginning to the end. It was very desirable to me to know the 
exact cost of some considerable job of marling, attended with certain 
known difficulties, and on any particular mode of estimating the expense ; 
for although the same degree of difficulty, and of cost of labor, might never 
again be met with, still, any such estimate would furnish a tolerable rule 
to apply, in a modified form, to any other undertaking of this kind. These 
estimates may be even more useful to other persons ; as they Will serve 
generally to prove that the greatest obstacles to the execution of this im- 
provement are less alarming, and more easily overcome, than any inexpe- 
rienced persons would suppose. 

Both these jobs were attended with uncommon difficulties, in the unusual 
thickness of the superincumbent earth, compared to that of the fossil shells 
worth digging, and on account of the distance, and amount of ascent, to the 
field. The first job was so much more expensive than was anticipated, 
that it may perhaps be considered as a failure— but as the account of its 
expense had been kept so carefully, it will be given just as if more success 
and profit had been obtained. This work was commenced April 14th, 
1824. The bed of marl for the upper six feet of its thickness is dry and 
firm, though easy to dig, and rich. It has an average strength of 45 per 
cent., the shells mostly pulverized, and the remaining earth more of clay 
than sand. After being carried out, the heaps appear, to a superficial ob- 
server, to be a coarse loose sand. Below six feet, the marl became so 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. ] 35 

poor as not to be worth carrying out, and was not used except when the 
distance was very short. Its strength was less than 20 per cent. The bed 
at first was exposed on the surface, near the bottom of a steep hill-side; but 
as a large quantity had been taken out, and several successive cuts made 
into the face of the hill some years before, the covering earth was increased 
on the space now to be cleared, so as to vary between eight and sixteen 
feet, and I think averaged between eleven and twelve. The situation of 
the marl and road required that a clear cart-way should be made as low as 
the intended digging; and therefore nearly all of the earth was to be 
moved by a scraper, and was thrown into the narrow bottom at the foot of 
the hill. This earth served thus to form an excellent causeway across the 
valley, which made part of the road in the next undertaking. All this marl 
runs horizontally, and the layers of different qualities are very uniform in 
their thickness. The greater part of the covering earth is a hard clay, or 
impure fuller's earth, which was difficult to dig, and still more so for the 
scraper^ to take up and remove. Part was thrown off by shovels, and 
served to increase a mound made by former operations, within the circle 
around which the scraper was drawn. 

Labor used in digging and removing earth. 

4 days' labor of 9 men, at 31 \ cents each, - 

4 6 women, > . , _ , 

ok ? at 1/ * cents, - . - 

4 2 boys, $ . A ' 

4 1 young girl at 15, and 1 old man at 25, 

4 8 oxen, (the scraper being drawn by 4 half the 

day, which then rested and grazed while the others worked 

the other half of the day,) at 1 5 cents each, .... 

Add 80 cents for wear of scraper, hoes, and shovels, - 

Total, - - - 



The price allowed for the oxen is much too high for the common work, 
and so much rest allowed ; but they work so seldom at the scraper, that 
both the men and the oxen are awkward, and the labor is very heavy, and 
even injurious to the team. 

Labor of digging and carrying out the mar/. 

Three tumbrels were kept at work on this job and the nexf, a good mule 
being added to the regular carting force— and no time was lost from April 
20th to May 31st, except when carts broke down, (which was very often, 
owing to careless driving, and worse carpentry,) or when bad weather 
compelled this labor to stop. One man dug the marl and assisted to load ; 
another man loaded, and led the cart out of the pit, until he met another 
driver returning from the field, to whom he delivered the loaded cart and 
returned to the pit with the empty one. Of the two other drivers, one was 
a boy of sixteen, and the other twelve years old— the youngest only was 
permitted to ride back, when returning empty. The distance to the nearest 
part of the work (measured by the chain) was nine hundred and two 
yards, and to the farthest one thousand and forty-five; adding two-thirds of 
the difference to the nearest for the average distance, makes nine hundred 
and ninety-seven yards. The ascenl from the pit, by a road formerly cut 



$11 


25 


5 


55 


1 


60 


4 


80 




80 


$24 00 



136 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

and well graduated for marling, was supposed to be twenty-five feet in 
perpendicular height ; and every trip of the carts, going and coming, crossed 
a valley supposed to be fifteen feet deep, and both sides forming a hill- 
side of that elevation. 

When only four and a half feet of the marl had been dug, a large mass 
of earth fell into the pit, covered entirely the remaining one foot and a half 
of marl, and stopped all passage for carts. To clear away this obstruction 
would have cost more labor than the remaining marl was worth, and 
therefore this pit was abandoned. This happened on May 10th, when six 
hundred and ninety-nine loads had been carried out, and the work done 
was equal to thirty-six days' work of one cart, (by adding together all the 
working time of each,) which was nineteen and a half loads for the ave- 
rage daily work of each cart, or fifty-eight for the three. The average size 
of the loads, by trial, was five and a half heaped bushels ; and the weight, 
one hundred and one pounds the bushel. It was laid on at one hundred 
and four loads, or five hundred and seventy-two bushels the acre. 

Labor employed for 699 loads, or 3844 bushels. 

2 men at 31£ cents, ... 
2 boys at 1 9 cents, - 

2 horses at 33 cents, ... 
1 mule at 26£ cents, 

3 carts at 5 cents, 
Tools at 3 cents, .... 

Daily expense, or for 58 loads, 

Digging and carting 699 loads at the same rate, 
Add the total expense of removing earth, 



Spreading at 50 cents the 100 loads, 

Total expense, 

Which makes the cost per bushel, 1 25-100 cents, 
per load, (5^) 7 
per acre, of 572 bushels, $7 85 

This marl was laid on much too thick for common poor land, and one 
fourth of the body uncovered was lost by the falling in of the earth. If 
one fourth of the expense of uncovering the marl was deducted on ac- 
count of this loss, it would reduce the whole expense nearly one eighth. 

As soon as the carts were stopped in the work just described, they were 
employed in moving earth from similar marl, across the ravine. The 
thickness, strength, and other qualities of the marl, on both sides, are not 
perceptibly different. A large quantity had also been formerly dug on this 
side, but the land being lower, the covering earth was not more than ten 
feet where thickest, and the average was eight and a half or nine feet. To 
make room for convenient working, and a large job, an unusual space was 
cleared, ten to fourteen feet wide, and perhaps fifty or more long. The 
shape of the adjoining old pits compelled this to be irregular. The greater 



62£ 




38 




66 




26| 




15 




3 




$2 11 




_ 


825 43 


- 


24 00 




$49 43 


- 


3 50 


$52 93 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



137 



part of the earth was of the same hard fuller's earth mentioned as being 
on the other side— and the upper part of this was still worse, being in 
woods, and the digging obstructed by the roots and trees. 

Labor used in digging and removing the earth. 

6 men 5 days, at 31 £ cents, - - - - $9 37£ 

5 women 5 i 

1 woman 1 v at 17 J cents, - - - - G 24 

2 boys 5 S 

1 old man 2 25 cents, .... 50 

2 girls 6 15 cents, - - - - 1 80 
8 oxen, for the scraper as before, each team at rest half 

the day, 5 days, at 1 5 cents, 6 00 

3 horses and carts, 1£ days, at 38 cents, - - - 171 
Add for damages to scraper and other utensils, - - - 865: 



Total cost of moving earth, $27 48§ 



Enough of the earth was carried by the carts to the dam crossing the 
ravine, to raise the road as high as the bottom of the intended pit. The 
balance was thrown into the valley wherever most convenient. Only a 
small proportion, perhaps one third, could be thrown off, without being 
carried away by the carts and scraper. 

The loads were carried to the same field, and by the same road as from 
the former digging. The first hundred and ninety-one loads served to 
finish the piece begun before, of which the average distance was nine 
hundred and ninety-seven yards; all the balance was carried to land ad- 
joining the former, eight hundred and forty-seven measured yards from 
the pit. 

The loads were ordered to be increased to six bushels, which was as 
much as the carts (without tail-boards) could hold, without waste in ascend- 
ing the hills ; but as the loaders often fell below that quantity, I suppose the 
average to have been five and three fourths heaped bushels, or five hundred 
and eighty-one pounds. 

The tumbrels were kept constantly at this work, except when some of 
the land was too wet, or for some other unavoidable cause of delay. All 
the space which the old pits occupied, and over which the road passed, be- 
ing composed of tough clay thrown from later openings, and which had 
never become solid, was made miry by every heavy rain, and caused more 
loss of time than would usually occur at that season. The same four 
laborers, and two horses and one mule, employed as before, and their daily 
work was as follows: 

May 1 3th, began the new pit 

1 3th, 2 carts all the day, and 1 for 2 hours only, (afterwards 

otherwise employed,) 47 loads. 

14th, 2 " half the day, then employed other-wise— (1 horse 

idle) 21 

15th, 3 " 61 

16th, Sunday. 

17th, 3 " finished most distant work with - - -62 

191 



& 



138 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

Brought forward, loads 191 

And the same day began nearest work with - - 4 

May 18th, 3 carts for 4 hours (stopped by heavy rain,) - 22 
19th and 20th, 3 carts at work elsewhere, on drier land. 

21st, 3 " again marling, 75 

22d, rain, no work done by horses. 

23d, Sunday. 

24th, 1 " at other work. 

25th, 3 " again marling, - - - - - - 74 

26th, 3 « 75 

27th, 3 « 72 

28th, 3 " 72 

29th, 3 " (shafts of one broken and repaired,) - - 64 

30th, Sunday. 

31st, 3 " until rain at 4 P. M. 53 

511 



702 J 

After this stoppage, the horses were put to ploughing the corn, that the 
cultivation might be sufficiently advanced to use all the laborers in harvest, 
which began on the 11th of June. As near as I could determine by in- 
spection, and a rough cubic measurement, about one half of the uncovered 
marl was then dug and carried out. As the remainder was not dug until 
August, when I was absent from home, I have no more correct means of 
ascertaining these proportions ; and shall according to this supposition 
charge half the actual cost of the whole uncovering of earth, to this sup- 
posed half of the marl which formed this last operation. 

The list of days' work shows that the average number of loads per day, 
at eight hundred and forty-seven yards, was twenty-four and a half for 
each cart, which made twenty-three and a half miles for the day's journey 
of each horse. The first four days' work finished the farthest piece, of 
which the average distance was nine hundred and ninety-seven yards— but 
this part of the work was on the nearest side of that piece, and at less than 
that average distance. I shall not make any separate calculation, for these 
hundred and ninety-one loads, but consider all as if carried only eight hun- 
dred and forty-seven yards. 

The daily cost of the laboring force, 2 men, 2 boys, 2 horses, 
and 1 mule, was before estimated at $2 11 — which served to 
carry out 7Z\ loads, or 422 bushels. At that rate, (to May 
31st,) 702 loads, or 4036 bushels, cost, - - - - $20 15 
Add half the expense of uncovering, (half the marl still remain- 
ing not dug,) 13 74 

For spreading, at 3 1 \ cents per hundred loads, ... 2 18f 



Total cost of 4036 bushels laid on, - - . $36 07% 



Which makes the cost per bushel, 9 mills nearly. 
And per acre, at 104 loads, or 598 bushels. - - - - $5 34| 
Or, at 400 bushels, which would have been a sufficient, and much 

safer dressing, per acre, $3 57 \ 

In 1828, at Shellbanks, Prince George county, a very poor, worn, and 
hilly farm, I commenced marling, and in about four months finished 120^ 
acres at rates between 230 and 280 bushels per acre. The time taken up 
in this work was five days in January, and all February and March, with 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



139 



two carts at work — and from the 5th of August to the 27th of September, 
with a much stronger force. I kept a very minute journal of all these ope- 
rations, showing the amount of labor employed, and of loads carried out 
during the whole time. It would be entirely unnecessary to state here any 
thing more than the general amounts of labor and its expense, after the 
two particular statements just submitted. At Shellbanks, the difficulties of 
opening pits were generally less, the average distance shorter, and the re- 
duced state of the soil, and the strength of the marl, made heavy dressings 
dangerous. These circumstances all served to diminish the expense to the 
acre. The difficulties, however, at some of the pits, were very great, 
owing to the quantity of water continually running in, through the loose 
fragments of the shells ; and almost every load was carried up some high 
hill. Taking every thing into consideration, I should suppose that the labor 
and cost of this large job of marling will be equal to, if not greater than 
the average of all that may be undertaken, and judiciously executed, on 
farms having plenty of this means for improvement, at convenient distances. 
The whole cost of this large job was as follows : 
Preparatory work, including uncovering marl, cutting and re- 
pairing the necessary roads, and bringing corn (from another 
farm) for the teams — digging, carrying out, and spreading 
6892 loads of mar! ; (4£ heaped bushels only, because of the 
steep hills, and sometimes wet marl,) on 120£ acres, - $258 38 

At the average rate of 57£ loads, or 259 bushels per acre, the 

average expense was, to the acre, 2 08 

To the load, .... 3 cents and 63-1 OOths, 
And to the bushel, ... 83-1 OOths. 

When the preceding edition of this essay was published, (in 1835,) the 
transportation of marl by water had been but recently commenced. Since, 
the business has been greatly increased. But still it is badly conducted in 
general, and therefore is much more costly than it would be under better 
and proper direction. Farmers are averse to being engaged in the manage- 
ment of vessels, or any other business away from their farms, and therefore 
they have always preferred to buy the marl from vessels, even at higher 
prices, rather than to have it dug by their own laborers and transported in 
their own vessels. And this division of labor would be right in all respects 
if the owners of the river lighters were better managers of their business, 
and their hands were industrious and sober. For rich marl thus obtained 
and transported, the prices at the purchasers' landings have usually been 
from 4 to 5 cents the heaped bushel. And at these high prices, the lazy 
and worthless and illy provided navigators have rarely realized any pro- 
fit. The highest price charged for marl, in beds on the river banks, is a 
half cent the bushel. Under existing circumstances, the cheapest and best 
mode of obtaining water-borne marl is for the farmer to also carry on the 
digging and the navigating. And if the several operations were properly 
conducted, the entire expense of water-borne marl, say 10 to 30 miles, will 
rarely exceed three cents the bushel when landed, and under favorable cir- 
cumstances may fall short of two cents. Collier H. Minge, Esq., of Charles 
City, and Dr. Corbin Braxton, of King William county, who have carried on 
this business extensively, and for years in succession, for marling their own 
farms, have furnished me with careful and detailed estimates of their expenses, 
which have been published at length in the Farmers' Register, (p. 567 vol. i. 
and p. 691, vol. viii.) According to the estimate of Mr. Minge, the entire cost 
of thus procuring marl, carried 1 5 miles on the broad water of James river, 
amounted to less than two cents the heaped bushel, when landed. And 



J 40 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

Dr. Braxton's total expense, the transportation being for eight miles on the 
narrow and smooth Pamunkey, was but little more than half a cent the 
bushel, placed at his landing. No charge was made for the marl in either 
case, but every other charge or expense was included. The labor and 
difficulties on James river, both of uncovering and digging the marl 
(at Coggins Point) and unloading (on a shallow creek) were unusually 
great ; and on the Pamunkey these labors were very light. A vessel and 
also a mode of loading, safe in strong winds, were necessary on James 
river ; while no such danger had to be feared, or was guarded against, on 
the well sheltered Pamunkey river. So much of the business in both these 
cases, as was conducted from home, necessarily was wanting of proper 
superintendence ; and, no doubt, both of these undertakings suffered for 
that important deficiency, as in all cases where labor is on a small scale of 
operations, and more especially when slave labor is employed. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE USE OP CALCAREOUS EARTH RECOMMENDED TO PRESERVE PUTRESCENT MA- 
NURES, AND TO PROMOTE CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH. 

The operation of calcareous earth in enriching barren soils has been 
traced, in a former part of this essay, to the chemical power possessed by 
that earth of combining with putrescent matters, or with the products of 
their fermentation — and in that manner preserving them from waste, for 
the use of the soil, and for the food of growing plants. That power was 
'exemplified by the details of an experiment, (page 60,) in which the carcass 
of an animal was so acted on, and its enriching properties secured. That 
trial of the putrefaction of animal matter in contact with calcareous earth, 
was commenced with a view to results very different from those which 
were obtained. Darwin says that nitrous acid is produced in the process 
of fermentation, and he supposes the nitrate of lime to be very serviceable 
to vegetation.* As the nitrous acid is a gas, it must pass off into the air, 
under ordinary circumstances, as fast as it is formed, and be entirely lost. 
But as it is strongly attracted by lime, it was supposed that a cover of 
calcareous earth would arrest it, and form a new combination, which, if 
not precisely nitrate of lime, would at least be composed of the same ele- 
ments, though in different proportions. To ascertain whether any such 
combination had taken place, when the manure was used, a handful of the 
marl was taken, which had been in immediate contact with the carcass, 
and thrown into a glass of hot water. After remaining half an hour, the 
fluid was poured off', filtered, and evaporated, and left a considerable pro- 
portion of a white soluble salt, (supposed eight or ten grains.) I could not 
ascertain its kind— but it was not deliquescent, and therefore could not have 
been the nitrate of lime. The spot on which the carcass lay was so strong- 
ly impregnated by this salt, that it remained bare of vegetation for several 
years, and until the field was ploughed up for cultivation. 

But whatever were the products of fermentation saved by this experi- 
ment, the absence of all offensive effluvia throughout the process sufficient- 
ly proved that little or nothing was lost, as every atom must be, when 
flesh putrefies in the open air ; and I presume that a cover of equal thick- 
ness of clay, or sand, or any mixture of both, without calcareous earth, 

* Darwin's Phytologia, pp. 210 and 224. Dublin edition. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES — PRAC 1 ICE. 



141 



would have had very little effect in arresting and retaining the aeriform 
products of putrefaction. All the circumstances of this experiment, and 
particularly the good effect exhibited by the manure when put to use, prove 
the propriety of extending a similar practice. In the neighborhood of 
towns, or wherever else the carcasses of animals, or any other animal sub- 
stances subject to rapid and wasteful putrefaction, can be obtained in great 
quantity, all their enriching powers might be secured, by depositing them 
between layers of marl, or calcareous earth in any other form. On the 
borders of the Chowan, immense quantities of herrings are often used as 
manure, when purchasers cannot take oil' the myriads supplied by the 
seines. A herring is buried under each corn-hill, and line crops are thus 
made as far as this singular mode of manuring is extended. But what- 
ever benefits have been thus derived, the sense of smelling, as well as the 
known chemical products of the process of animal putrefaction, make it 
certain that nine-tenths of all this rich manure, when so applied, must be 
wasted in the air. If those who fortunately possess this supply of animal 
manure would cause the fermentation to take place and be completely 
mixed with and enclosed by marl, in pits of suitable size, they would in- 
crease prodigiously both the amount and permanency of their acting ani- 
mal manure, besides obtaining the benefit of the calcareous earth mixed 
with it. 

But without regarding such uncommon or abundant sources for sup- 
plying animal matter, every farmer may considerably increase his stock 
of putrescent manure by using the preservative power of marl ; and all 
the substances that might be so saved are not only now lost to the land, 
but serve to contaminate the air while putrefying, and perhaps to engender 
diseases. The last consideration is of, most importance to towns, though 
worthy of attention every where. Whoever will make the trial will be 
surprised to find how much putrescent matter may be collected from the 
dwelling-house, kitchen, and laundry of a family ; and which if accumu- 
lated (without mixture with calcareous earth,) will soon become so offen- 
sive as to prove the necessity of putting an end to the practice. Yet it 
must be admitted that when all such matters are scattered about, (as is 
usual both in town and country,) over an extended surface, the same putre- 
faction must ensue, and the same noxious effluvia be evolved, though not 
enough concentrated to be very offensive, or even always perceptible. 
The same amount is inhaled — but in a very diluted state, and in small 
though incessantly repeated doses. But if mild calcareous earth in any 
form (and fossil shells or marl present much the cheapest) is used to cover 
and mix with the putrescent matters so collected, they will be prevented 
from discharging offensive effluvia, and preserved to enrich the soil. A 
malignant and ever acting enemy will be converted to a friend and bene- 
factor. 

The usual dispersion and waste of such putrescent and excrementitious 
matters about a farm house, though a considerable loss to agriculture, may 
take place without being very offensive to the senses, or manifestly in- 
jurious to health. But the case is widely different in towns. There, unless 
great care is continually used to remove or destroy filth of every kind, it 
soon becomes offensive, if not pestilential. During the summer of 1832, 
when that most horrible scourge of the human race, the Asiatic cholera, 
was desolating some of the towns of the United Slates, and all expected to 
be visited by its fata! ravages, meat and unusual exertions were every 
where used to remove and prevent the accumulation of filth, which, it 
allowed to remain, it was supposed would invite the approach, and aid the 
effects of the pestilence. The efforts made for that purpose served to show 

18 



142 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



what a vast amount of putrescent matter existed in every town, and which 
was so rapidly reproduced, that its complete riddance was impossible. Im- 
mense quantities of the richest manures, or materials for them, were washed 
away into the rivers — caustic lime was used to destroy them — and the 
chloride of lime to decompose the offensive products of their fermentation, 
when that process had already occurred. All this amount of labor and ex- 
pense was directed to the complete destruction of what might have given 
fertility to many adjacent fields — and yet served to cleanse the towns but 
imperfectly, and for a very short time. Yet the object in view might have 
been better attained by the previous adoption of the proper means for pre- 
serving these putrescent matters, than by destroying them. These means 
would be to mix or cover all accumulations of such matters with rich marl, 
(which would be the better for the purpose if its shells were in small parti- 
cles,) and in such quantity as the effect would show to be sufficient. But 
much the greater part of the filth of a town is not, and cannot be accumu- 
lated ; and from being dispersed is the most difficult to remove, and is 
probably the most noxious in its usual course of fermentation. This would 
be guarded against by covering thickly with marl the floor of every cellar 
and stable, back yard and stable lot. Every other vacant space should be 
lightly covered. The same course pursued on the gardens and other culti- 
vated grounds would be sufficiently compensated by their increased products 
that would be obtained. But independent of that consideration, the ma- 
nures there applied would be prevented from escaping into the air; and 
being wholly retained by the soil, much smaller applications would serve. 
The level streets ought also to be sprinkled with marl, and as often as cir- 
cumstances might require. The various putrescent matters usually left in 
the streets of a town alone serve to make the dirt scraped from them a 
valuable manure; for the principal part of the bulk of street dirt is com- 
posed merely of the barren clay brought in upon the wheels of wagons 
from the country roads. Such a cover of calcareous earth would be the 
most effectual absorbent and preserver of putrescent matter, as well as the 
cheapest mode of keeping a town always clean. There would be less 
noxious or offensive effluvia than is generated in spite of all the ordinary 
means of prevention ; and by scraping up and removing the marl after it 
had combined with and secured enough of putrescent matter, a compost 
would be obtained for the use of the surrounding country, so rich and so 
abundant, that its use would repay a large part, if not the whole of the ex- 
pense incurred in its production. Probably one covering of marl for each 
year would serve for most yards, cellars, &c. ; but if required oftener, it 
would only prove the necessity for the operation, and show the greater 
value in the results. The compost that might be obtained from spaces 
equal to five hundred acres, in a populous town, would durably enrich thrice 
as many acres of the adjacent country ; and after twenty years of such a 
course, the surrounding farms might be capable of returning to the town a 
ten-fold increased surplus product. .After the qualities and value of the 
manure so formed were properly estimated, it would be used for farms that 
would be out of the reach of all other calcareous manures. Carts bringing 
country produce to market might with profit carry back loads of this com- 
post eight or ten miles. The annual supply that the country might be fur- 
nished with would produce very different effects from the putrescent and 
fleeting manure now obtained from the town stables. Of the little durable 
benefit heretofore derived from such means, the appearance of the country 
offers sufficient testimony. At three miles distance from some of the prin- 
cipal towns in Virginia, more than half the cultivated land is too poor to 
yield any farming profit. The surplus grain sent to market is very incon- 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 143 

siderable — and the coarse hay from the wet natural meadows can only be 
sold to tavern-keepers, or those who feed horses belonging to other persons 
— and to whom that hay is the most desirable that is least likely to be eaten. 

But even if the waste and destruction of manure in towns were counted 
as nothing, and the preservation of health by keeping the air pure were 
the only object sought, still calcareous earth, as presented by rich marl, 
would serve the purpose far better than quick-lime. It is true that tjie lat- 
ter substance acts powerfully in decomposing putrescent animal matter, 
and destroys its texture and qualities so completely, that the operation is 
commonly and expressively called " burning" the substances acted on. 
But to use a sufficient quantity of quick-lime to meet and decompose all 
putrescent animal matters in a town would be intolerably expensive, and 
still more objectionable in other respects. If a cover of dry quick-lime in 
powder was spread over all the surfaces requiring it for this purpose, the 
town would be unfit to live in ; and the nuisance would be scarcely less, 
when rain had changed the suffocating dust to an adhesive mortar. Wool- 
len clothing, carpets, and even living flesh, would be continually sustaining 
injury from the contact. No such objections would attend the use of mild 
calcareous earth ; and this could be obtained probably for less than one- 
fifth of the cost of quick-lime, supposing an equal quantity of pure calca- 
reous matter to be obtained in each case. At this time the richest marl on 
James river may be obtained at merely the cost of digging, and its carriage 
by water, which, if undertaken on a large scale, could not exceed, and pro- 
bably would not equal, two cents the bushel.* 

The putrescent animal matters that would be preserved and rendered 
innoxious by the general marling of the site of a town, would be mostly 
such as are so dispersed and imperceptible that they would otherwise be 
entirely lost. But all such as are usually saved in part would be doubled 
in quantity and value, and deprived of their offensive and noxious qualities, 
by being kept mixed with calcareous earth. The importance of this plan 
being adopted with the products of privies, &c, is still greater in town than 
country. The various matters so collected and combined should never be 
applied to the soil alone, as the salt derived from the kitchen, and the potash 
and soap from the laundry, might be injurious in so concentrated a form. 
When the pit for receiving this compound is emptied, the contents should 
be spread over other and weaker manure, before being applied to the field. 

Towns might furnish many other kinds of rich manure, which are now 
lost entirely. Some of these particularly require the aid of calcareous 
earth to be secured from destruction by putrefaction, and others, though 
not putrescent, are equally wasted. The blood of slaughtered animals, 
and the waste and rejected articles of wool, hair, feathers, skin, horn and 
bones, all are manures of great richness. We not only give the flesh of 
dead animals to infect the air, instead of using it to fertilize the land, but 
their bones, which might be so easily saved, are as completely thrown away. 
Bones are composed of phosphate of lime and gelatinous animal matter, 
and, when crushed, form one of the richest and most convenient manures 
in the world. They are shipped in quantities from the continent of Europe, 
and latterly even from this country, to be sold for manure in England. 
The fields of battle have been gleaned, and their shallow graves emptied 
for this purpose : and the bones of the ten thousand British heroes, who fell 
on the field of Waterloo, are now performing the less glorious, but more 
useful purpose of producing, as manure, bread for their brothers at home. 

* Such was the case in 1833 when this part was first published ; but now a half cent 
the bu-hel is the usual price charged for the best marl, as it lies in the river banks. 



j 44 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

There prevails a vulgar but useful superstition, that there is " bad luck" 
in throwing into the fire any thing, however small may be its amount or 
value, that can serve for the food of any living animal. It is a pity that 
the same belief does not extend to every thing that as manure can serve to 
feed growing plants— and that even the parings of nails and clippings of 
beards are not saved (as in China) for this purpose. However small each 
particular source might be, the amount of all the manures that might be 
saved, and which are now wasted, would add incalculably to the usual 
means for fertilization. Human excrement, which is scarcely used at all in 
this country, is stated to be even richer than that of birds; and if all the 
enriching matters were preserved that are derived not only from the food, 
but from all the habits of man, there can be no question but that a town of 
ten thousand inhabitants, from those sources alone, might enrich more land 
than could be done from as many cattle. 

The opinions here presented are principally founded on the theory of 
the operation of calcareous manures, as maintained in the foregoing part 
of this essay, but they are also sustained to considerable extent by facts 
and experience. The most undeniable practical proof of one of my po- 
sitions is the power of a cover of marl to prevent the escape of all offen- 
sive effluvia from the most putrescent animal matters. Of this power I 
have made continued use for about eighteen months, and know it to be 
more effectual than quick lime, even if the destructive action of the latter 
was not objectionable. Q,uick-lime forms new combinations with putrescent 
substances, and, in thus combining, throws off effluvia, which, though 
different from the products of putrescent matter alone, are still disagreea- 
ble and offensive. Mild lime on the contrary absorbs and preserves every 
thing — or at least prevents the escape of any offensive odor being perceived. 
'Whether putrescent vegetable matter is acted on in like manner by calca- 
reous earth cannot be as well tested by our senses, and therefore the 
proof is less satisfactory. But if it is true that calcareous earth acts by 
combining putrescent matters with the soil, and thus preventing their loss, 
(as I have endeavored to prove in chapter viii.) it must follow that, to 
the extent of such combination, the formation and escape of all volatile 
products of putrefaction will also be prevented. 

But it will be considered that the most important inquiry remains to be 
answered, to wit : Has the application of calcareous manures been found 
in practice decidedly beneficial to the health of the residents on the land? 
I answer, that long experience, and the collection and comparison of nume- 
rous facts derived from various sources, will be required to remove all 
doubts from this question ; and it would be presumptuous in any individual 
to offer as sufficient proof, the experience of only ten or twelve years on 
any one farm. But while admitting the insufficiency of such testimony, I 
assert that, so far, [to 1833,] my experience decidedly supports my position. 
My principal farm, until within some four or five years, was subject in a re- 
markable degree to the common mild autumnal diseases of our low 
country. Whether it is owing to marling, or other unknown causes, these 
bilious diseases have since [to 1833] become comparatively very rare. 
Neither does my opinion in this respect, nor the facts that have occurred 
on my farm, stand alone. Some other persons are equally convinced of 
this change on other land as well as on mine. But in most cases where I 
have made inquiries as to such results, nothing decisive had then been ob- 
served. The hope that other persons may be induced to observe and re- 
port facts bearing on this important point has in part caused the appear- 
ance of these crude and perhaps premature views. 

Even if my opinions and reasoning should appear sound, I am aware 



LCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. j |0 

that the practical application is not to be looked for soon; and that the 

scheme of using marl in towns is more likely to be met by ridicule, than to 
receive a serious and attentive examination. Notwithstanding this an- 
ticipation, and however hopeless of making converts, either of individuals 
or of corporate bodies, I will offer a few concluding remarks on the 
most obvious objections to, and benefits of the plan. The objections will 
all be resolved into one — namely, the expense to be encountered. The 
expense certainly would be considerable ; but it would be amply compen- 
sated by the gains and benefits. In the first place, the general use of marl 
as proposed, for towns, would serve to insure cleanliness, and purity of the 
air, more than all the labors of their boards of health and their scavengers, 
even when acting under the dread of approaching pestilence. .Secondly, 
the putrescent manures produced in towns, by being merely preserved 
from waste, would be increased ten-fold in quantity and value. Thirdly, 
all existing nuisances and abominations of filth would be at an end; and 
the beautiful city of Richmond (for example) would not give offence to our 
nostrils, almost as often as it offers gratification to our eyes. Lastly, the 
marl, (or mild lime,) after being used until saturated with putrescent matter, 
would retain all its first value as calcareous earth, and be well worth 
purchasing and removing to the adjacent farms, independent of the enrich- 
ing manure with which it would be loaded. If these advantages can indeed 
be obtained, they would be cheaply bought at any price necessary to be 
encountered for the purpose. 

The foregoing part of this chapter was first published in the Farmers' 
Register, (for July, 1833,) as supplementary to the previous edition of this 
essay. That publication drew some attention from others to the subject, 
and served to elicit many important facts, of which I had been before 
altogether ignorant, in support of the operation of calcareous earth in 
arresting the effects of malaria, or the usual autumnal diseases of the 
southern states and other similar regions. These facts, together with the re- 
sult of my own personal experience, extended through two more autumns, 
(or sickly seasons, as commonly called here and farther south,) since the 
first publication of these views, will now be submitted. Most of the facts 
derived from other persons relate to one region, the "rotten lime-stone 
lands" of southern Alabama ; but that region is extensive, is of remarkable 
and well known character and peculiarities, and the evidence comes from 
various sources, and is full, and consistent in purport. The facts will be 
here presented in an abridged form. The several more full communica- 
tions, from which they are drawn, may be referred to in the Farmers' Regis- 
ter, vol. i., pp. 152, 214 and 277. 

The first fact brought out was that, in the town of Mobile near the 
Gulf of Mexico, the streets actually had been paved or covered with shells 
— thus presenting precisely such a case as I recommended, though not with 
any view to promoting cleanliness or health. The shells had been used 
merely as a substitute for stones, which could not be so cheaply obtained. 
Nor had the greatly improved healthiness of Mobile, since the streets were 
so covered, (of which there is the most ample and undoubted testimony,) 
been attributed to that cause, until the publication of the foregoing opinions 
served to connect them as cause and effect. This can scarcely be doubted 
by those who will admit the theory of the action of calcareous earth ; and 
the remarkable change from unhealthiness in Mobile, to comparative healthi- 
ness, is a very strong exemplification of the truth of the theory. But 
it is not strange, when so many other causes might (and probably did) 
operate to arrest disease, that none should have considered the chemical 
operation of the shelly pavement as one of them, and still less as the one 



146 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PEACTICE. 

by far the most important. The paving of streets, (with any material,) 
draining and filling up wet places, substituting for rotting wooden buildings 
new ones of brick and stone— and especially the operation of destructive 
and extensive fires— all, we know, operate (and particularly the last) to im- 
prove the healthiness of towns ; and all these operated at Mobile, as well 
as shelling the streets. Neither was the shelling so ordered as to produce 
its best effect for health. The streets, alleys, and many yards and small 
vacant lots were covered, and so far the formation and evolving of pesti- 
lential effluvia were lessened. But as this was not the object in view, and 
indeed the chemical action of shells was not thought of, the process was in- 
complete, and must necessarily have been less effectual than it might have 
been made. The shelling ought to have been extended to every open spot 
where filth could accumulate — to every back yard, in every cellar, and 
made the material of the floor of every stable, and every other building of 
which the floor would otherwise be of common earth. In addition, after 
a sufficient lapse of time to saturate with putrescent matters the upper part 
of the calcareous layer, and thus to make it a very rich compound, there 
should have been a partial or total removal of the mass, and a new coating 
of shells laid down. The value of the old material, as manure, would pro- 
bably go far towards paying for this renewal. If it is not so renewed, the 
calcareous matter cannot combine with more than a certain amount of pu- 
trescent matters ; and, after being so saturated, can have no further effect 
in saving such matters for use, or preventing them from having their usual 
evil course. 

The burning of towns is well known to be a cause of the healthiness of 
the places being greatly improved, and that such effect continues after as 
many buildings, or more, have replaced those destroyed by fire. Indeed 
this improvement is considered so permanent, as well as considerable, that 
the most sweeping and destructive conflagrations of some of our southern 
towns have been afterwards acknowledged to have proved a gain and a 
blessing. The principal and immediate mode of operation of this univer- 
sally acknowledged cause is usually supposed to be the total destruction, 
by the fire, of all filth and putrescent matters ; and in a less degree, and 
more gradually, by afterwards substituting brick and stone for wooden 
buildings, which are always in a more or less decayed state. But though 
these reasons have served heretofore to satisfy all, as to the beneficial con- 
sequences of fires, surely they are altogether inadequate as causes for such 
great and durable effects. The mere destruction of all putrescent matters 
in a town, at any one time, would certainly leave a clear atmosphere, and 
give strong assurance of health being improved for a short time afterwards. 
But these matters would be replaced probably in the course of a few 
months, by the residence of as many inhabitants, and the continuance of 
the same general habits ; and most certainly this cause would lose all its 
operation by the time the town was rebuilt. But there is one operation 
produced by the burning of a town, which is far more powerful — which in 
fact is indirectly the very practice which has been advocated — and the 
effect of which, if given its due weight, furnishes proof of the theory set 
forth, by the experience of every unhealthy town which has suffered much 
from fire. If a fair estimate is made of the immense quantity of mild calca- 
reous earth which is contained in the plastering and brick-work of even the 
wooden dwelling-houses of a town, and still more of those built of ma- 
sonry, it must be admitted that all that material being separated, broken 
down, (soon or late,) and spread, by the burning of the houses and pulling 
down their ruins, is enough to give a very heavy cover of calcareous earth 
to the whole space of land burnt over. It is to this operation, in a far 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



147 



greater degree than to all others, that I attribute the beneficial effects to 
health of the burning of towns. 

I proceed to the facts derived from the extensive body of prairie lands in 
Alabama which rest on a substratum of soft lime-stone, or rich indurated 
clay marl. It was from these remarkable soils that the specimens were 
obtained which were described at pp. 42, 43. Some of these, indeed all that 
have been examined by chemical tests, of the high and dry prairie lands, 
contain calcareous earth in larger proportions than any soils of considera- 
ble extent in the United States that I have seen or tested. The specimens 
not containing free calcareous earth are of the class of neutral soils ; and 
the calcareous earth, which doubtless they formerly contained, and from 
which they derived their peculiar and valuable qualities, may be supposed 
only to be concealed by the accumulation of vegetable matter, according 
to the general views submitted in chapter vii. The more full descriptions 
of the soils of this remarkable and extensive region before referred to 
render it unnecessary to enlarge much here. It will be sufficient to sum 
up concisely the facts there exhibited — and which agree with various other 
private accounts which have been received from undoubted sources of 
information. The deductions from these facts, and their accordance with 
the theory of the operation of calcareous matter, are matters of reasoning, 
and, as such, are submitted to the consideration and judgment of readers. 

The soil of these prairie lands is very rich, except the spots where the 
soft lime-stone rises to the surface, and makes the calcareous ingredient 
excessive. In the specimen formerly mentioned, the pure calcareous matter 
formed 59 parts in the 100 of this "bald prairie" land. The soil generally 
has so little of sand, that nothing but the calcareous matter which enters 
so largely into its composition prevents it being so stiff and intractable, 
that its tillage would be almost impracticable ; yet it is friable and light 
when dry, and easy to till. But the superfluous rain water cannot sink 
and pass off, as in sandy or other pervious lands, but is held in this close 
and highly absorbent soil, which throughout winter is thereby made a deep 
mire, unfit to prepare for tillage, and scarcely practicable to travel over. 
This water-holding quality of the soil, and the nearness to the surface of 
the hard and impervious marly substratum, deprive the country of natural 
springs and running streams; and before the important discovery was 
made that pure water might be obtained by boring from 300 to 700 feet 
through the solid calcareous rock, the inhabitants used the stagnant rain 
water collected in pits, which was very far from being either pure or pala- 
table. Under all these circumstances, added to the rank herbage of 
millions of acres annually dying and decomposing under a southern sun, 
it might have been counted on, as almost certain, that such a country 
would have proved very unhealthy. Yet the reverse is the fact, and in a 
remarkable degree. The healthiness of this region is so connected with 
and limited by the calcareous substratum and soil, that it could not escape 
observation ; and they have been considered as cause and effect by those 
who had no theory to support, and who did not spend a thought upon the 
mode in which was produced the important result they so readily admitted. 
Their testimony therefore is in this respect the more valuable, because it 
cannot be suspected of having any such bias. 

To the time when this last publication is made, (1842,) there has been 
no reason to doubt the actual facts of autumnal diseases (the effects of 
malaria) being greatly lessened by even the partial use of marling ; nor 
the inference that they would almost cease to occur, (if no mill-ponds and 
undrained lands remained,) if all the surface of a considerable extent of 
country were made calcareous, and all rapidly putrescent and otherwise 



J4g CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

offensive matter were preserved and kept harmless by being combined 
with marl, applied from time to time as required. But it should be re- 
membered that, as yet, rapid and extensive as has been the progress of 
marling in Virginia, there has been no instance of the greater part of any 
whole neighborhood of so much as a few miles in extent being marled ; 
nor even of all the surface of any one farm ; and that, therefore, we have 
no means of judging by experience of the full measure of benefit to be 
derived from such a general change of the character of the soil. The 
most that has yet been done any where is the marling of all the cultivated 
and arable land ; leaving unmarled, and as much as ever the abundant 
sources of vegetable decomposition and of disease, all the wood-land, hill- 
sides, and the wet bottoms. Now, as the remaining wood-lands are 
generally among the poorest of our soils, that is, (according to the theory 
maintained,) soils incapable of combining with and retaining the products 
of decomposition— and as they are covered annually with leaves, which in 
time all rot and their gaseous products finally pass off into the air— it fol- 
lows, that the lands so left are among the most fruitful of malaria. It is 
obvious that the remedy is but partially and inefficiently in operation, so 
long as from one third to one half of every farm is left unmarled, and as 
free as ever to evolve the agent of disease. So sure does this opinion seem 
to me, that I have commenced acting on it, by marling the wood-land that 
is not designed to be cleared for cultivation— and shall continue, as more 
necessary labors permit, to do so, until not an acre of the farm is left with- 
out being changed in character by calcareous earth. 

It is proper to add, as an opinion founded on but limited experience as 
yet, that though the cases of sickness on Coggins Point farm have cer- 
tainly diminished very greatly — there not being one case of late years of 
bilious diseases, where there were twenty formerly— still that the diseases 
seem to have changed in kind, and to have increased in severity and danger. 
Formerly, there was almost no sickness except from ague and fever, (or, 
very rarely, a case of mild bilious fever,) from which, though few persons 
escaped through the autumn, and some suffered several relapses, the 
attacks were rarely dangerous, and required little skill, and but a few 
days to cure, for that time. Bad as was this state of things, it seemed that 
the ague and fever acted as a safely-valve to the system, and while it sel- 
dom permitted the enjoyment of long continued robust health, it prevented 
the occurrence of more dangerous or fatal diseases, such as are the most 
common among the fewer diseases of what are deemed healthy regions. 
The fewer diseases of my adult negroes for the last twelve or thirteen 
years have been of a more inflammatory kind, and are not confined to 
autumn ; and there have been certainly more severe and fatal diseases, and 
more that required medical aid, than formerly, when there was so much 
more of sickness of one kind, and confined to one season. In short, it 
seems that the diseases are no longer (or but in few cases) those of the 
low country and of a bilious climate, but are more like those of the upper 
country, which, though occurring but rarely, are generally of a more 
serious nature. The facts on which this particular opinion has been formed, 
are still too few, and of too short continuance, to attach to them much im- 
portance ; and even if they were less doubtful, I have not the medical 
knowledge to trace these new effects back to their causes. Still, it is 
deemed due to candor, and to the desire for a fair and full investigation of 
the subject, even if making against my own views, that these opinions 
should be stated. There is no other subject, than this, taken in general, 
which more deserves and requires investigation ; and in the present in- 
choate state of the discussion, the expression of even erroneous opinions 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



149 



will not be useless, if it should serve to elicit more full or correct ones from 
other sources. 

Nothing better than this one subject deserves investigaton by medical 
men, acting under the direction of government. The materials for informa- 
tion are now abundant, in the experience and observation of the nume- 
rous farmers who have marled or limed their lands long enough to judge 
of the effects on health ; and whether upon true or false grounds, the opi- 
nion among such persons seems now (1842) almost universal, (so far as I 
have heard opinions expressed,) that the prevalence of autumnal diseases, 
the product of malaria, has been invariably and manifestly lessened since 
the lands were in part marled or limed. My individual experience and ob- 
servations on this point, now of nine years' more extent than when the first 
fruits thereof were stated in a foregoing part of this chapter, concur with 
the more general and loose information derived from others, in confirming 
my position. It sometimes happens that the very fact of an opinion being 
universally admitted prevents the obtaining such proofs of its truth as 
would certainly have been ready, if the opinion had been questioned and 
denied by many skeptics. And such is the state of the proposition now 
under consideration. Even in the few years which have passed since I 
first advanced the opinion that the use of calcareous manures served to 
improve health, that opinion has become so general, and is deemed so cer- 
tain and unquestionable, by those persons who have used those manures, 
that but few facts can be learned of them sufficiently exact to serve as proofs ; 
because no person has deemed it necessary to collect and preserve proofs of 
what none doubted. When asking for such proofs, as I have often done, of 
cultivators and residents in various parts of the marl region, I have rarely 
obtained any, except new declarations, from every person interrogated, of 
concurrence and entire faith in the general opinion that marling or liming 
had served greatly to abate the prevalence of autumnal diseases. Puch ge- 
neral belief and confidence in an opinion so recently entertained and pro- 
mulgated, cannot be altogether founded on error. 

When my opinions of the beneficial operation of calcareous earth in soil, 
or mixed with putrescent matter, in destroying or disarming the sources of 
disease, were first published, and until after the last publication of the same 
in 1835, I had no knowledge that similar grounds had been taken by any 
other person. But since, in the recent publications of a French writer, 
M. Puvis, I have found the same general opinion expressed, and many im- 
portant facts given in confirmation. However, while I gladly accept the im- 
portant aid of M. Puvis' facts, as proof, I do not admit the correctness of his 
reasoning thereupon. Some of the former will be quoted in the following 
passages. For his full views, see the translations of his essays « On Lime 
as Manure,' and 'On Marl,' both contained in vol. iii. of the Farmers' Re- 
gister. 

" The results of marling may be considered in a point of view more ele- 
vated, and still more important than that of the fertility which it gives to 
the soil ; they may perhaps have much influence on the healthiness of a 
country where it becomes a general practice. 

" Although it may not have been yet uttered by others, this opinion ap- 
pears founded on strong probabilities, on strong analogies and precise facts, 
all of which appear to give it a sufficient certainty. 

"It is known that the calcareous principle is one of the most powerful 
agents to resist putrefaction. It is employed to make healthy places inha- 
bited by men and animals, in which sickness or contagion is feared; it 
serves to neutralize the emanations of dead bodies undergoing putrefaction ; 
it destroys the deleterious exhalations which escape from privies, and which 
sometimes cause the death of those who are employed to cleanse them, 

19 



150 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 



" It even seems that calcareous countries are unhealthy only when they 
are interspersed by marshes, or when some causes, foreign to the soil and 
climate, determine the unhealthiness, as in countries on the borders of the 
sea, where the flowing of the tide and the mingling of salt and fresh wa- 
ters infect the air, by the deleterious emanations of their combination. 
This cause of unhealthiness is regarded as a certain fact ; for salubrity is 
generally seen to appear whenever this mixture of waters is prevented. 

" In the valleys of rivers bordered by calcareous mountains, which enclose 
unhealthy countries in their interior, insalubrity commences there only as 
the calcareous soil, which is attached to the mountain, ogives place to sili- 
cious soil. In the same plain, and far from a mountain, salubrity is seen to 
diminish in the same proportion that the calcareous soil of the surface does; 
and the communes of Bresse, which have an abundance of marly or calca- 
reous soils, are much more remarkable for their salubrity than those on 
the white lands {terrain blanc*.) While the ponds of Dombe, which are 
on the silicious soil, appear to be one of the greatest causes of unhealthi- 
ness, those of Bresse, which are on calcareous lands, do not show such 
effects in the country where they are found ; so, likewise, the ponds of the 
country situated between the Veyle and the Reyssouze, to the north-west 
of Bourg, which are generally on calcareous soil, do not appear to injure 
the healthiness of the country in any manner. 

" For the support of this system, we will also cite the ponds of Berri on 
calcareous soil, whose emanations have nothing unhealthy; the laying dry 
of the ponds of Parragay, in the canton of Lignieres, has added nothing to 
the healthiness of a calcareous country naturally healthy. And in the same 
canton, the pond of Villiers, which is said to be seven leagues in circum- 
ference, does not cause diseases on its borders. Besides, during the month 
of August, the water of the ponds on calcareous soil does not become 
blackish, as often happens in silicious ponds. The water would then be 
made wholesome by the calcareous principle, in the same way as their 
emanations. 

"In fine, Dombe and Sologne, and a number of other countries are un- 
healthy, and subject to intermittent fevers, without being marshy; but their 
soil is likewise silicious, and the land moist. Puisaye, and a part of Bresse, 
in similar land, which contain little or no calcareous soil, have also many 
autumnal fevers." — (Translation from * Essai sur la Marne?) 



CHAPTER XVI. 

DIRECTIONS FOR THE MECHANICAL OPERATIONS OF APPLYING MARL A3 MANURE. 

The great deposite of fossil shells, which custom has miscalled marl, is 
in many places exposed to view in most of the lands that border on our 
tide-waters, and on many of their small tributary streams. Formerly, it 
was supposed to be limited to such situations; but since its value as a ma- 
nure has caused it to be more noticed and sought after, marl has been 
found in many other places. It is often discovered by the digging of wells, 
but lying so deep that its value must be more highly estimated than at 

* The reader of M. Puvis' essays on lime and marl, which were inserted in vol. iii., 
may remember that this provincial term and others (plateaux argillo-silicieux, &c.) were 
there used to designate a peculiar kind of soil, destitute of calcareous matter, stiff, in- 
tractable and poor — and which seems precisely of the character of the poor ridge lands 
of lower Virginia, to which calcareous manures are so peculiarly adapted. — Translator. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. j5j 

present before it will be dug for manure. From all the scattered evidences 
of the presence of this deposite, it may be inferred that it lies beneath 
nearly every part of our country between the sea and the granite ridge 
which forms the falls of all our rivers. It is exposed where it rises, and 
where cut through by the deep ravines of hilly land and by the courses of 
rivers — and concealed by its dips, and the usual level surface of the coun- 
try. The rich tracts of neutral soil on James river, such as Shirley, West- 
over, Brandon, and Sandy Point, seem to have been formed by alluvion, 
which may be termed recent compared to that of our district in general; 
and in these no marl has been found, though it is generally abundant in 
the adjacent higher lands. Fresh-water muscle shells are sometimes found 
in thin layers, (from a few inches to two feet thick,) both on these lands and 
others — but generally near the surface, and always far above the deposite 
of sea shells, found under the high land. These two layers of different 
kinds of shells are separated by a thickness of many feet of earth, contain- 
ing no shells of any kind. Muscle shells are richer than the others, as 
they contain much gelatinous and enriching animal matter. On this ac- 
count, the earth with which muscle shells are found mixed is a rich black 
mould. Most persons consider these beds of muscle shells as artificially 
formed by the Indians, who are supposed to have collected the muscles for 
food, and left the shells where the fish were consumed. There are some 
strong reasons which may be adduced both to sustain and to oppose this 
opinion. But whatever may be the origin of these collections of muscle 
shells, it does not affect their qualities as manure for the soils in which 
they are found, or for others to which they may be removed. 

Neither the fossil sea shells, nor the earth mixed with them, are supposed 
to contain any important or considerable proportion of putrescent matter 
— and this manure has been considered throughout this essay as being 
valuable only as containing calcareous earth. This, no doubt, is the only 
ingredient of any worth, in the great majority of cases. But sometimes 
there are other ingredients— which must be considered merely as excep- 
tions to the general rule. One of these exceptions has already been stated, 
in the description of gypseous marl, (page ( J2 ;) and some others have been 
discovered since the publication of that statement. A kind of earth, contain- 
ing a large proportion of carbonate of magnesia, as well as of carbonate 
nate of lime, lias been found in Hanover county, Va. {Farmers' Register, 
vol. ?.) Professor Rogers, of William and Mary College, has discovered, in 
many of the marls of lower Virginia, some proportion of the " green 
sand" of geologists, or what is itself called "marl," (another misapplication 
of that name,) in New Jersey, and which has there been found highly va- 
luable as manure, though containing not a particle of the carbonate of lime, 
which constitutes the sole value of shells and calcareous manures in gene- 
ral. The formation or body of this green-sand, separate and distinct from 
any marl, I had discovered long before, and of which a full account will be 
given in a subsequent part of this essay. But however interesting may be 
the discovery of these different ingredients of particular bodies of marl, 
and however valuable they may prove as manures, still they are not to be 
considered as treated of in this essay under any general observations on 
marl— which observations are designed to be applied simply to manure of 
which the only useful ingredient is the carbonate of lime. 

More than a hundred kinds of sea shells are found in the beds of marl, 
that I have worked, without counting any of very small size. Many kinds 
would escape common observation, and others would require the aid of a 
magnifying glass to be distinguished. Generally the shells, though fragile, 
are entire, but are much broken by the digging, and after-operations. The 



J 52 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

white shells are rapidly reduced, after being mixed with an acid soil ; but 
some gray kinds, as the scallop and the oyster, are so hard as to be very 
long before they can act as manure. Some beds, and they are generally 
the richest, have scarcely any whole shells, but are formed principally of 
small broken fragments. Of course the value of marl as a manure de- 
pends in some measure on which kinds of shells are most numerous, and 
their state of division, as well as upon the total amount of the calcareous 
earth contained. The last is however by far the most important criterion 
of value. The most experienced eye may be much deceived in the 
strength of marl ; and still more gross and dangerous errors would be made 
by an inexperienced marler. The strength of a body of marl often 
changes materially in sinking a foot in depth — although the same changes 
may be expected to occur very regularly, in every pit sunk through the 
same bed. Whoever uses marl ought to know how to analyze it, which 
a little care will enable any one to do with sufficient accuracy. The me- 
thod described, at page 35, for ascertaining the proportions of calcareous 
earth in soils, will of course serve for the same purpose with marl. But as 
more particular and minute directions may be necessary for many persons 
who will use this manure, and who ought to be able to judge of its value, 
such directions will be here given, and which any one can follow by mere- 
ly applying sufficient attention and care. To perform this process will re- 
quire no other chemical tests than muriatic acid and carbonate of potash, 
and no apparatus, except small scales and weights, a glass funnel and 
some blotting or very porous printing paper— all of which may be bought 
at any apothecary's shop. 

Directions for analyzing marl by solution and precipitation. 

1st. Take a lump of marl, fossil shells, &c, large enough to furnish a 
fair sample of the particular body under consideration— dry it perfectly 
near the fire— pound the whole to a coarse powder (in a metal mortar,) 
and mix the whole together. Take from the mixture a small sample, 
which reduce to a finely divided state, and weigh of it a certain portion, 
say 50 grains, for trial. 

2d. To this known quantity, in a glass, pour slowly and at different times 
muriatic acid diluted with three or four times its bulk of water — (any ex- 
cept limestone, or hard water.) The acid will dissolve all the lime in the 
calcareous earth, and let loose the carbonic acid, with which it was pre- 
viously combined, in the form of gas, or air, which causes the effervescence, 
which so plainly marks the progress of such solution. The addition of the 
muriatic acid must be continued as long as it produces effervescence ; and 
but very little after that effect has ceased. The mixture should be well 
and often stirred, and should have enough excess of acid to be sour after 
standing thirty or forty minutes. (So much of the acid as the lime com- 
bines with loses its sour taste, as well as its other peculiar qualities.) 

The mixture now consists of 1, the lime combined chemically with 
muriatic acid, forming muriate of lime, which is a salt, and which is dis- 
solved in the water — 2, a small excess of muriatic acid mixed with the 
fluid — and 3, the sand, clay and any other insoluble parts of the sample of 
marl. To separate the solid from the fluid and soluble parts is the next 
step required. 

3rd. Take a piece of filtering or blotting paper, about six or eight inches 
square, (some spongy and unsized newspapers serve well,) fold it so as to 
fit within a glass funnel, which will act better if its inner surface is fluted. 
Pour water first into the filter, so as to see whether it is free from any hole, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. J 53 

or defect ; if the filtering paper operates well, throw out the water, and 
pour into it the whole mixture. The fluid will slowly pass through into a 
glass under the funnel, leaving on the filter all the solid parts, on which 
water must be poured once or twice, so as to wash out, and convey to the 
solution, every remaining particle of the dissolved lime. 

4th. The solid matter left, after being thus washed, must be taken out of 
the funnel on the paper, and carefully and thoroughly dried — then scraped 
off the paper and weighed. The weight, say 27 grains, being deducted 
from the original quantity, 50, would make the part dissolved (50 — 27= 
23) 46 per cent, of the whole. And such may be taken as very nearly 
the proportion of calcareous earth (or carbonate of lime) in the earth 
examined. But as there will necessarily be some loss in the process, and 
every grain taken from the solid parts appears in the result as a grain 
added to the carbonate of lime, it will be right in such partial trials to 
allow about two per cent, for loss, which allowance will reduce the forego- 
ing statement to 44 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

5th. But it is not necessary to rely altogether on the estimate obtained 
by subtraction, as it may be proved by comparison with the next step of 
the process. Into the solution (and the washings) which passed through 
the filter, pour gradually a solution of carbonate of potash. The first 
effect of the alkaline substance, thus added, will be to take up any 
excess of muriatic acid in the fluid — and next, to precipitate the lime (now 
converted again to carbonate of lime,) in a thick curd-like form. When 
the precipitation is ended, and the fluid retains a strong taste of the carbo- 
nate of potash, (showing it to remain in excess,) the whole must be poured 
on another filtering paper, and (as before,) the solid matter left thereon re- 
peatedly washed by pouring on water, then dried, scraped off, and weighed. 
This will be the actual proportion of the calcareous part of the sample, ex- 
cept, perhaps, a loss of one or two grains in the hundred. The loss, there- 
fore, in this part of the process apparently lessens, as the loss in the earlier 
part increases the statement of the strength of the manure. The whole 
may be supposed to stand then : 

27 grains of sand and clay } 

21 ■ of carbonate of lime v=50. 

2 of loss y 

If the loss be divided between the carbonate of lime and the other worth- 
less parts of the manure, it will make the proportion 28 and 22, which will 
be probably near the actual proportions. 

The foregoing method is not the most exact, but is sufficiently so for 
practical use. All the errors to which it is liable will not much affect the 
reported result— unless magnesia is present, and that is not often in ma- 
nures of this nature. Magnesia is never found (I believe) in the deposite3 
of fossil shells— nor have I known of its presence in any of the earthy ma- 
nures, except lime-stone, and the magnesian marl discovered in Hanover. 
If any considerable proportion of carbonate of magnesia should ever be 
present in marl tried by the foregoing method, it may be suspected by 
the effervescence being very slow compared to that of carbonate of lime 
alone ; and the proportions of these two earths may be ascertained as fol- 
lows. The magnesia as well as the lime would be dissolved by the mu- 
riatic acid, (applied as above directed,) but the magnesia would not be pre- 
cipitated with the carbonate of lime, but would remain dissolved in the 
alkaline solution, last separated by filtering. If this liquor is poured into a 
Florence flask and boiled for a quarter of an hour, the carbonate of mag- 
nesia will fall to the bottom, and may then be separated by filtering and 
washing, and its quantity ascertained by being dried and weighed. This 



j 54 CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 

part of the process may be easily added to the foregoing— but. it will very 
rarely be required. 

If desired, the proportion of silicious and aluminous earth may be ascer- 
tained, with enough truth for practical use, by stirring well these parts 
(minutely divided) in a glass of water, and after letting it stand a minute, for 
the sand to subside, pouring off the fluid into another glass. The sand 
will be left, and the finely divided earth and clay pass off with the water, 
and may be separately collected and dried on filtering paper, and weighed. 

For want of attention to the only safe guide, the chemical analysis of 
marl, gross errors are often committed, and losses continually sustained. 
By relying on the eye only, I have known marl, or rather a calcareous 
sand, to be rejected as worthless, and thrown off at considerable cost of 
labor, to uncover worse marl below, in which whole shells were visible ; and 
on the contrary, earth has been taken for marl, and used as such, which 
had no calcareous ingredient whatever. The best marls for profitable use 
are generally such as show the fewest whole shells, or even large frag- 
ments—and would be passed by unnoticed in some cases, or considered 
only as barren sand, or equally worthless clay. But even if such mistakes 
as these are avoided, every farmer using marl, without analyzing specimens 
frequently and accurately, will incur much loss by applying it in quantities 
either too great or too small. 

If marl reaches the surface, or " crops out," any where, it may be found 
most easily by examining the beds of streams passing through the lowest 
land, or deepest ravines. A few of the smallest particles of shells found 
there will prove that the stream passes through marl somewhere above ; 
and a careful examination continued towards the source, will scarcely fail 
to discover where the bed lies. Its usual direction is horizontal, or very 
Kttle inclined ; and therefore if discovered any where along the sides of a 
narrow valley, it may generally be found by digging on the opposite side, or 
elsewhere not very distant at the same elevation on the hill-side ; and it is 
always nearer the surface on swells, or the convex parts of the hill-side, than 
where it retreats and forms hollows. In the more level parts of the coun- 
try, the marl sometimes is very near the surface of the lowest land, and yet 
is not visible any where. In such situations, particularly, a cheap and con- 
venient auger may be used with much advantage in searching for marl ; 
and it is also useful to try the depth or quality of a bed, even when its sur- 
face has been found. This tool may be made by welding a straight stem, 
half an inch square and six or seven feet long, to a common screw auger 
of about one inch and a half bore. If it has been so much worn as to be 
useless as a carpenter's tool, it will serve for boring in earth. A ci'oss-pieee 
for a handle should be fixed to slide over the stem, and be fastened by a 
small screw at different elevations, as most convenient. Other pieces may 
be added to the stem, attached by joints, so as to bore twelve or more feet 
deep. Dr. Wm. I. Cocke, formerly of Sussex, to whom I am indebted for 
this simple but useful tool, was enabled by its use to find a very valuable 
bed of marl which was no where visible at the surface, and which he 
used to great extent and advantage. 

Mr. Williams Carter, of Hanover, has introduced a simple and useful 
improvement which greatly facilitates the use of the cheap and light auger 
just described. When one or more additional joints are required, (for bor- 
ing to greater depth than seven or eight feet,) the process becomes much 
more troublesome, because of the necessity for separating and re-uniting the 
several joints every time the auger is drawn up to take off the earth, which 
has to be done for every four or five inches of depth gained. This trouble 
may be avoided by Mr. Carter's method. This is, to have a rough bench, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. J55 

or narrow table, made of a single plank, some 7 or 8 feet long, and having 
legs 10 or 12 feet in length. A hole large enough for the stem of the auger 
to turn in freely is in the middle of the bench. As soon as a second joint 
is attached, the bench is set over the boring, with the hole immediately above, 
so that when the auger is lifted perpendicularly clear of the boring, its upper 
joint passes through the hole, and is held up steadily by the support of the 
bench above. For still greater and unusual depths, another bench with 
longer legs may be substituted, or a lower one placed upon and confined 
to the first bench. {Farmers' Register.) Such means as these, imperfect as 
they are, will be found more convenient and more operative, as well as 
much more cheap, than the heavy and costly augers used to search for coal. 
By proper examinations marl may be found at or near the surface 
through a vast extent of the tide-water region of the United States, where 
it has not yet been noticed. But still, under most lands it probably does 
not approach within twenty-five or thirty feet of the surface, and if reached 
by digging, would be covered by water, so as greatly to increase the diffi- 
culty of obtaining it from such depths. Will these obstacles always debar 
from the benefit of this treasure half the great region under which it lies'? 
I think not. Though it would be ridiculous now to propose such under- 
takings, it will at some future time be found profitable to descend still 
greater depths for good marl : and shafts will be sunk and the water and 
marl drawn out by horse-power or by steam engines, and the excavation 
carried on in the same manner as is done in coal mines. When such 
means shall be resorted to, it is probable that there will be but a smali por- 
tion of the great tide-water region, or the region east of the granite range, 
in which marl may not be found sufficiently convenient for use. For ex- 
ample : from a mile south of Petersburg, along the line of the railway to 
the Roanoke, no marl had been found either by the excavations for the 
road, or in the much deeper wells dug long before in the vicinity of the 
route. The well for the water-station nine miles from Petersburg did not 
at all times supply enough water for the engines, and it was determined to 
dig one deep enough for that purpose. Disregarding the small veins of water 
usually reached at less than 20 feet, the digging was sunk to 50 feet, when 
marl was reached. Its quality at top was rather poor ; but it became more 
and more rich, as well as of firmer consistence, (though never very hard,) 
until the well had been sunk to 80 feet, without reaching the bottom of the 
marl, or finding any other vein of water. The lower part of this marl 
was from 80 to 90 per cent, of carbonate of lime, as I found by several 
analyses. It would have served to make good lime, by burning, for cement 
or for manure, to be transported to a distance on the railway; besides 
being of more value to be used unprepared to enrich the nearer land. 
Though covered by 50 feet of earth, and the excavation impeded by the 
water from above, this marl might have been profitably raised 80 feet, or 
as much lower as the bed may extend. And so firm was its texture, that 
the excavation might have been safely enlarged gradually as it was 
deepened, as is done in the chalk-pits of England, so as that the digging 
should form a hollow cone, communicating from its apex by the narrower 
cylindrical well through the 50 feet of earth above to the surface. Thus 
though the earth might have been twice the thickness of the marl below, 
the greater diameter of excavation in the latter would have furnished 
much the greater quantity of contents. Of this most valuable deposite, 
found in a region before supposed destitute, and where its transportation to 
a long line of destitute land was so convenient, no use has been made, ex- 
cept of the quantity necessarily drawn up in digging this well. And this 
means for enriching the undertaker, and fertilizing a vast extent of surface 



156 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



of acid and poor land, will probably remain totally neglected for the next 
fifty years. It is most probable that this same thick and rich body of marl 
may be found at many miles' distance on the line of rail-road, and indeed 
wherever the surface is in the same position relative to the granite range. 
For taking up marl from any depth, greater than 16 feet, or more than 
two casts with the shovel will serve for, it will be better to use horse-power 
applied to machinery. A crane which has been used by Wm. Carmichael 
Esq., of Glueen Ann's county, Md., will serve the purpose. His description 
of the crane was published in the 'Farmers' Register,' as follows: 

" In your ' Essay on Calcareous Manures,' you give instructions for dig- 
ging and carting marl. This method I pursued for several years, but found 
the labor hard on my hands, and tedious. Marl here is generally found in 
deep ravines or in wet grounds. My operations have been slow, from the 
difficulty of making firm and lasting ways, and the labor of ascending 
steep hills. Last winter I made a model, and this spring I built a machine 
for raising marl, to be worked by a horse. I have been using it to advan- 
tage, and now send you a draught of it, as it may be useful to those who 
have wet marl pits like mine. By means of a pump to throw off the wa- 
ter, pits may be worked at a considerable depth ; and even if marl is dry, 
but lies deep, I think the crane may be used to advantage. I use two boxes, 
and by means of hinges and a latch the marl is discharged from the bottom. 
I have double blocks ; the rope passes through the swoop about eighteen 
inches from the end, and runs down to the post which supports the swoop, 
and passes through it on a small roller, and in like manner through the 
next post to the cylinder, to which a reel is attached to increase the 
motion. The post which holds the swoop and the cylinder, runs on iron 
-pins let into thimbles. The lever is in two pieces, one fastened in the 
cylinder with a groove at the end, into which the other is let, and secured 
by a sliding iron clamp. When the marl is discharged from the box, and 
the swoop swung round over the pit, in nautical phrase, by unshipping the 
end of the lever, the rope unwinds, and the box descends without moving 
the horse. The circle in which the horse travels ought to be twenty-one 
feet in diameter. The second and third posts supported by side braces. 




" The cost of the machine is small, though I cannot make an exact esti- 
mate. The carpenter who did the work was hired by the day on the farm, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 257 

and was taken oft' with other jobs ; but his bill could not exceed eight 
dollars. The cost of the iron work was ten, and one hundred and sixty- 
five feet of inch rope, at eighteen and a half cents a pound. The timber, 
taken from my own woods, may be estimated at five dollars. The rope I 
find soon wears out, and I intend to supply its place with a light iron chain. 
" When the marl is uncovered, with one efficient hand in the pit and a 
less efficient one to discharge the boxes and drive the horse, five hundred 
bushels may be raised in a day. The work is not oppressive to the labor- 
ers. The teams stand on high, dry ground ; no sloughs to plunge through, 
and no hill to climb. The swoop is turned by a small rope over the carts, 
and the marl immediately discharged into them. I work four carts, with 
two sets of oxen to each. They came out of the winter lean and weak ; 
and now, with green clover for their food, at the distance of a half to three- 
quarters of a mile I draw out from four to five hundred bushels a day, 
and my oxen have improved. My work goes on with ease and expedition, 
without stoppage to mend roads, or to clear ditches." 

Our beds of marl are either of a blue, or a yellowish color. The color 
of the first might be supposed to have some connexion with the presence 
of water, as this kind is always kept wet by water oozing slowly through 
it. But the yellow marl is also sometimes wet, though more generally dry. 
The blue color of marl therefore is not caused by merely the presence of 
water, or there would be no wet yellow marl. When both blue and yel- 
low marl are seen in the same bed, the blue is always at bottom; and the 
line of division between the colors is well defined, and there is seen no gra- 
dual change of one to the other. I observed, in the year 1834, that as 
intense and perfect a blue color as marl has ever been known to have was 
given to what had been dry yellow marl, by its being used as a thick floor- 
ing for a stable yard, and kept covered with the rotting manure, and pene- 
trated by its liquid oozings, which the marl was there placed to save. It 
may be inferred from this fact that blue marls have received their color 
from some vegetable extract, or other putrescent matter, dissolved in the 
water passing through the bed. 

The dry marls are of course much the easier to be worked. Unless 
very poor, and sandy, as well as wet, all our marls are sufficiently firm 
and solid for the sides of the pit to stand secure, when dug perpendicularly. 

Where a bed of marl is dry, and not covered by much earth, no direc- 
tions are required for the pit work— except it be, that the pit should be 
long enough to allow the carts to descend to the bottom (when finished) 
and to rise out on a slope sufficiently gradual. Thi^ will prevent the ne- 
cessity of twice handling the marl, by first throwing it out of the pit and 
then into the carts, which must be done if the pit is made too short, or its 
ends too steep, for the loads to be drawn out. No machine or contrivance 
yet known will raise marl from the bottom of a pit, or a valley, so well 
as a horse cart; and no pains will be lost, in enlarging the pit, and gradu- 
ating the ascent out of it, to attain that object. 

But it is not necessary, nor often convenient, that the carts shall de- 
scend as low as the bottom of the excavation. For the lower 6 or 8 feet 
of the marl to be dug, it is generally best, (after digging an area of suffi- 
cient size to the top of that part,) to take out this lower part in small pits, 
of about 5 feet wide to 7 or 8 in length, with perpendicular ends as well 
as sides. These pits may be filled with the earth removed from the next 
adjacent space, cleared off for another digging. If the bed be very wet, 
or unavoidably subject to inundation from streams swollen by heavy rains, 
it will be more safe to dig pits as small as the men employed can find space 

20 



158 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



to dig in and throw out from, and to sink them to 15 or 16 feet, by throwing 
the lower half on a table, whence another man will throw it to the level 
where the carts can stand to be loaded. Then each separate pit will soon 
be completed, and out of danger of bad weather. And if flooded before 
being finished, the loss of the marl, then remaining not dug, will not be 
important in so small an excavation. 

A.5 marl shows usually on a hill-side, but little earth has to be moved off 
to uncover the first place for digging. But the next, and each successive 
cover of earth, will be more thick, until it may be necessary to abandon 
that place and begin again elsewhere. But the quantity of covering earth 
need not be regarded as a serious obstacle, if it is not thicker than the 
marl below it. While that is the case, one pit completed will receive all 
the earth thrown from an equal space, for commencing another. When 
this proportion of earth is exceeded, it is necessary to carry it farther, by 
either wheel-barrows or scrapers, and the labor is thereby greatly increased. 

For any extensive operation, it is much cheaper to take off a cover of 
earth twelve feet thick to obtain marl of equal depth, than if both the co- 
vering earth and marl were only three feet each. Whether the cover be 
thick or thin, two parts of the operation are equally troublesome, viz. to 
take off the mat of roots, and perhaps some large trees on the surface soil, 
and to clean off the surface of the marl, which is sometimes very irregular. 
The greater part of the thickest cover would be much easier to work. But 
the most important advantage in taking off earth of ten or more feet in 
thickness, is saving digging by causing the earth to come down by its own 
weight. If time can be allowed to aid this operation, the driest earth will 
mostly fall, by being repeatedly undermined a little. But this is greatly 
facilitated by the oozing water, which generally fills the earth lying imme- 
* diately on beds of wet marl. In uncovering a bed of this description, for 
one of my early operations, where the marl was to be dug fourteen feet, 
and ten to twelve feet of earth to remove, my labor was made ten-fold 
heavier by digging altogether. The surface bore living trees, and was full 
of roots — there was enough stone to keep the edges of the hoes bat- 
tered — and small springs and oozing water came out every where, after 
digging a few feet deep. A considerable part of the earth was a tough, 
adhesive clay, kept wet throughout, and which it was equally difficult to get 
on the shovels, and to get rid of. Some years after, another pit was un- 
covered on the same bed, and under like circumstances, except that the 
time was the last of summer, and there was less water oozing through the 
earth. This digging was begun at the lowest part of the earth, which was 
a layer of sand, kept quite wet and soft by the water oozing through it. 
With gravel shovels, this was easily cut under from one to two feet along 
the whole length of the old pit, and, as fast as was desirable, the upper 
earth, thus undermined, fell into the old pit ; and afterwards, when that did 
not take place of itself, the fallen earth was easily thrown there by shovels. 
As the earth fell separated into small but compact masses, it was not much 
affected by the water, even when it remained through the night before be- 
ing shoveled away. No digging was required, except this continued sho- 
veling out of the lowest sand stratum ; and whether clay, or stones, or roots, 
were mixed with the falling earth, they were easy to throw off. The nu- 
merous roots, which were so troublesome in the former operation, were 
now an advantage ; as they supported the earth sufficiently to let it fall 
only gradually and safely ; and before the roots fell, they were almost clear 
of earth. The whole body of earth, notwithstanding all its difficulties, 
was moved off as easily as the driest and softest could have been by dig- 
ging altogether. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -PRACTICE. 



159 



In working a pit of wet marl, no pains should be spared to drain it as 
effectually as possible. Very few beds are penetrated by veins of running 
water which would deserve the name of springs ; but water _oozes very 
slowly through every part of wet marl, and bold springs often burst out 
immediately over its surface. After the form of the pit and situation of 
the road are determined, a ditch to receive and draw off all the water 
should be commenced down the valley, as low as the bottom of the area 
where the carts are to stand is expected to be made ; and the ditch opened 
up to the work, deepening as it extends, so as to keep the bottom of the 
ditch on the same level with the bottom of the area. It may be cheaper, 
and will serve as well, to deepen this ditch as the deepening of the pit pro- 
ceeds. After the marl is uncovered for the full size intended for the area, 
(which ought to be large enough for carts to turn about on,) a little drain 
of four or five inches wide, and as many deep, (or the size made by the 
grubbing hoe used to cut it,) should be carried all around to intercept the 
surface or spring water, and conduct it to the main drain. The marl will 
now be dry enough for the carts to be brought on and loaded. But as the 
digging proceeds, oozing water will collect slowly; and, aided by the 
wheels of loaded carts, the surface of the firmest marl would soon be ren- 
dered a puddle, and next quagmire. This may easily be prevented by the 
inclination of the surface. The first course dug off should be much the 
deepest next the surface drain, (leaving a margin of a few inches of firm 
marl, as a bank to keep in the stream,) so that the digging shall be the low- 
est around the outside, and gradually rise in level to the middle of the area. 
Whatever water may find its way within the work, whether from oozing, 
rain, or accidental burstings of the little surface drain, will run to the out- 
side, the dip of which should lead to the lower main drain. After this form 
has once been given to the surface of the area, very little attention is re- 
quired to preserve it ; for if the successive courses are dug of equal depth 
from side to side, the previous dip will not be altered. The sides or walls 
of the pit should be cut, (in descending,) something without the perpendi- 
cular, so that the pit is made one or two feet wider at bottom than top. 
The usual firm texture will prevent any danger from this overhanging 
shape, and several advantages will be gained from it. It gives more space 
for work — prevents the wheels running on the lowest and wettest parts — 
allows more earth to the disposed of, in opening for the next pit — and pre- 
vents that earth from tumbling into the next digging, when the separating 
wall of marl is afterwards cut away. The next upper and larger drain of 
the pit, which takes the surface water, will hang over the small one below, 
kept for the oozing water. The former remains unaltered throughout the 
job, and may still convey the stream when six feet above the heads of the 
laborers in the pit. The lower drain of course sinks with the digging. 
Should the pit be dug deeper than the level of the main receiving ditch can 
be sunk, a wall should be left between, and the remainder of the oozing 
water must be conducted to a little basin near the wall, and thence be 
baled or pumped into the receiving ditch. The passage for the carts to 
ascend from the pit should be kept on a suitable slope ; and the marl form- 
ing that slope may be cut out in small pits, after all the balance of the dig- 
ging has been completed. 

If the marl is so situated that carts cannot be driven as low as the bot- 
tom, either because of the danger of flooding, or that the ascent would be 
too steep for sufficiently easy draught, then the area must be cut out in 
small pits, as before stated, beginning at the back part, and extending as 
they proceed, towards the road leading out of the pit. 

On high and hilly land, marl is generally found at the bottom of ra- 



1(50 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE, 

vines, and separated from the field to which it is to be carried by a high and 
steep hill-side. The difficulty of cutting roads in such situations is much 
less than any inexperienced person would suppose. We cannot get rid of 
any of the actual elevation— but the ascent may be made as gradual as is 
desired, by a proper location of the road. The intended course must be 
laid off by the eye, and the upper side of the road marked. If it passes 
through woods, it will be necessary to use grubbing hoes for the digging. 
With these, the digging should be begun at the distance of four or five feet 
below the marked line, and carried horizontally onward to it. The earth 
so dug is to be pulled' back with broad hoes, and laid over a width of 
three or four feet below the place from which it was taken. Thus the upper 
side of the road is formed by cutting down, and the lower side by filling 
up with the earth taken from above. 



The annexed figure will prevent these directions being misunderstood. 
The straight line from a to b represents the original slope of the hill-side, of 
-which the whole figure is a section. The upper end of the dotted part of 
the line is in the mark for laying off the upper side of the road. The up-' 
per triangle is a section of the earth dug out of the hill-side, and the lower 
triangle of the part fiU?d up by its removal. The horizontal line is the level 
of the road formed by cutting in on the upper, and filling up on the lower 
side. After shaping the road roughly, the deficiencies will be seen, and may 
be corrected in the finishing work, by deepening some places and filling 
up others, so as to graduate the whole properly. A width of eight or nine 
feet of firm road will be sufficient for carting marl. 

If the land through which the road is to be cut is not very steep, and is 
free from trees and roots, the operation may be made much cheaper by 
using the plough. The first furrow should be run along the line of the 
lower side of the intended road, and turned down hill; the plough then 
returns empty, to carry a second furrow by the first. In this manner it 
proceeds, cutting deeply, and throwing the slices far, (both of which are 
easily done on a hill-side,) until rather more than the required width is 
ploughed. The ploughman then begins again over his first furrow, and 
ploughs the whole over as at first, and this course is repeated perhaps once 
or twice more, until enough earth is cut from the upper and put on the 
lower side of the road. After the first ploughing, broad hoes should aid 
and complete the work, by pulling down the earth from the higher to the 
lower side, and particularly in those places where the hill-side is steepest. 
After the proper shape is given, carts, at first empty and then with light 
loads, should be driven over every part of the surface of the road, until it 
is firm. If a heavy rain should fall before it has been thus trodden, the 
road would be rendered useless for a considerable time. 

These directions are mostly suited for greater difficulties than usually oc- 
cur, though they are such as attended most of my labors in marling. In the 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. [Q\ 

great majority of cases, there will be much less labor and care and skill re- 
quired, because there will not be encountered such obstacles as high and 
steep hills to ascend, thick over-lying earth to remove, or wet pits and roads 
to keep drained. 

In large operations and in dry marl, much labor of digging might be 
saved by slightly undermining a perpendicular body of marl, and then 
splitting of large masses at once, by driving in a line of wedges on the 
upper surface. 

For hard or firm marl, narrow and heavy picks are the best digging 
utensils. Gravel shovels, with rounded points and long handles, are the 
cheapest and most effective for throwing out the marl and loading the carts, 
as well as for afterwards spreading the heaps on the field. 

Tumbrel carts, drawn by a single horse or mule, are most convenient for 
conveying marl short distances. Every part of the cart should be light, 
and the body should be so small as only to hold the load it is intended to 
carry, without a tail-board. This plan enables the drivers to measure every 
load, which advantage will be found on trial much more important than 
would at first be supposed. If carts of common size are used, the careless 
laborers will generally load too lightly, yet sometimes will injure the horse by 
putting on a load much too heavy. The small sized cart-bodies prevent both 
these faults. The load cannot be made much too heavy; and if too light, the 
farmer can detect it at a glance. Where there is a hill to ascend, five heap- 
ed bushels of wet marl is a sufficient load for a horse or good mule. If the 
marl is dry, or the road level and firm, six bushels will be not too much, 
and may be put in the same carts, by using tail-boards. 

Strong laborers are required in the pit for digging and loading ; but boys 
who are too small for any other regular farm labor, are sufficient to drive 
the carts. Horses or mules kept at this work soon become so tractable 
that very little strength or skill is required to drive them. 

One of the most general and injurious errors is the irregular and unequal 
distribution of the marl over the fields. By this error, it often happens 
that in the same acre there is both too much and too little marl, on many 
different parts. It will save much time and trouble, and ensure far greater 
accuracy in depositing the loads, and afterwards in spreading them, to 
have the field marked off slightly by a plough, in checks or squares of sizes 
suitable to the desired amount of the dressing. A load (or the half of a 
load for very light marling) should be dropped in every square, and the 
heap be required to be spread over that marked space precisely. 

All these hints and expedients, or perhaps better plans, might perhaps 
occur to most persons before they are long engaged in marling. Stiil these 
directions may help to smooth away some of the obstructions in the way 
of the inexperienced ; and they will not be entirely useless, if they serve to 
prevent even small losses of time and labor. 



162 CALCAREOUS MANURES-PKACTICE. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PROGRESS OF MARLING IN VIRGINIA. 

My task is at last completed. Whether I shall be able to persuade my 
countrymen to prize the treasures, and seize the profits which are within 
their reach, or whether my testimony and arguments shall be fruitless, 
soon or late, a time must arrive when my expectations will be realized. 
The use of calcareous manures is destined to change a large portion of 
the soil of lower Virginia from barrenness to fertility ; which, added to the 
advantages we already possess — our navigable waters and convenient 
markets, the facility of tilling our lands, and the choice of crops offered by 
our climate — will all concur to increase ten-fold the present value of our 
land, and produce more farming profit than has been found elsewhere on 
soils far more favored by nature. Population, wealth and learning, will 
keep pace with the improvement of the soil ; and we or our children will 
have reason to rejoice, not only as farmers, but as Virginians, and as 
patriots. 

Such, as appear in the last paragraph, were the concluding words of this 
essay, as published in 1832, and precisely as the work had been prepared for 
the press several years before that publication was made. Such was then 
the language of hope and anticipation. It may now be both interesting and 
useful to examine to what extent such hopes and sanguine anticipations 
have been yet realized. 

Every new and great improvement in agriculture has had to work its 
way slowly and in opposition to every possible discouragement and ob- 
stacle. It would seem that the agricultural classes were, of all classes and 
professions, always the least ready to receive benefit from instruction — the 
most distrustful of instructers and the least thankful for their services — 
even after the benefit is the most completely proved, and established by ac- 
tual practice and unquestionable facts. The novel improvement by marling 
has not been an exception to this universal rule. But still, it may be con- 
fidently asserted, that no other agricultural improvement has been so ra- 
pidly extended, so widely and generally received in such short time, or 
has been so generally and greatly profitable to all who have availed them- 
selves of the benefits thereby offered to their acceptance. When my first 
trials were made in 1818, so far as I then knew, I had no forerunner in 
success. For the few and small known and long abandoned experiments, 
and the opinions deduced therefrom, stood as warnings against, and not in 
the least as inducements to repetition ; and the then actually proceeding 
use of marl, silent and unknown, but successful, had not even been heard 
of. A few more years served to dispel all doubts of those who had tried or 
could witness the results of the applications of marl. Still, ignorance of 
the mode of operation has not been dispelled by the knowledge of the great 
benefits of marl ; and therefore the grossest errors of practice accom- 
panied and greatly lessened the full advantages of the continually extend- 
ing use of marl. It required but little time for all to learn and submit to 
the one main and simple instruction, " apply marl ;" but few would consent 
to learn any thing else, or would believe that there was any thing else 
necessary to learn or to do, except merely to " apply marl." They would 
not learn from any thing but their own dearly bought experience of error. 
And very many have thus learned, and have paid the cost to their own 
pecuniary interest of thousands of dollars in value — whether of delay, of 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



163 



misapplied effort, or of positive loss and injury sustained by wrong prac- 
tice — which the out-lay of a few shillings, and the attentive rending for a 
few hours, might have effectually guarded them against. And so it still 
goes on, and will go on, with all who are new beginners and learners, and 
who have not yet paid each their hundreds or thousands of dollars in loss, 
in preference to less than as many cents, in both money and labor, in ac- 
quiring proper instruction, and security from all such loss. 

But with all such enormous drawbacks of loss, which if avoided would 
have doubled the actually achieved benefits, the extension of marling and 
liming, and the amount of benefit thence derived and realized in lower Vir- 
ginia, since 1818, have had no precedent in the annals of agricultural im- 
provement by any mode of manuring. The following extract from a more 
general report, recently made by the writer to the State Board of Agricul- 
ture, will present this branch of the subject in its proper aspect. 

" Marling, or manuring from beds of fossil shells. — This mode of fertiliza- 
tion, now so general through all the marl region of lower Virginia, was 
not practised except on three or four detached farms, and that to but small 
extent before 1820. Some few and generally small experimental applica- 
tions of marl had indeed been made by different individuals, from 15 to as 
far back as 45 years before ; but which applications, from total misconcep- 
tion of the true mode of action of calcareous manures, had been deemed 
failures ; and without exception, of course, had been abandoned by the ex- 
perimenters as worthless ; and the experiments had been almost forgotten, 
until again brought to notice, after the much later and fully successful in- 
troduction of the practice. 

" Henley Taylor and Archer Hankins, two plain and illiterate farmers, and 
near neighbors in James City county, were the earliest successful and 
continuing appliers of marl in Virginia. But at what time they began, and 
which of them was the first, I have not been able to learn, though visiting 
Mr. Hankins' farm for that purpose, as well as to see his marling, and 
making inquiries of him personally, in 1833. Mr. Taylor had then been 
long dead, and his improvements said to be almost lost, by the then occu- 
pant of his land. Mr. Hankins was unable to say when he and his neighbor 
began to try marl. He was only certain that it was before 1816. Yet, 
though these farms are within 12 or 15 miles of Williamsburg, to which 
place I had made visits once a year or oftener, yet I never heard an intima- 
tion of their having begun such practice, until some time after my own first 
trials in 1818.' At that time, when led to the use, as I was, altogether by 
theoretical views, and by reasoning on the supposed constitution of the 
soil, as well as the known constitution of the manure, it would have been 
to me the most acceptable and beneficial information to have heard that 
any other person in Virginia had already proved practically the value of 
marling. The slow progress of the knowledge of the mere fact of marl 
having been successfully used before that time, was a strong illustration of 
the then almost total want of communication among farmers, as well as 
of their general apathy and ignorance, in regard to the means of improving 
their lands.* 

" Much earlier than the commencement of marling in James City, the 
practice had been commenced, (in 1805,) in Talbot county, Maryland, by 
Mr. Singleton. His account of his practice is in the 4th volume of the 
'Memoirs of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society,' dated December 31, 
1817, and first published sometime in 1818. But successful as was his 

* See a more full account at page 108, vol. i., Farmers' Register. 



J 54 * CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

practice, and also that of Mr. Taylor and Mr. Hankins, in connexion with 
much worse farming, it is certain that neither of these individuals had the 
least idea of the true action of marl ; and they were indebted to their good 
fortune, more than to any exercise of reasoning, that they received profit- 
able returns, and did no injury by marling. They all three applied their 
putrescent manures with the marl. But though this was the safest and 
most beneficial plan, the thus uniting them prevented the separate action 
and value of putrescent and calcareous manures being known, compared, 
and duly appreciated. 

" My own application of marl, on Coggins Point farm, Prince George 
county, which in 1818 extended only to 15 acres, (of which but 3 or 4 
were under the crop of that year,) by 1821 had been increased to above 
80 acres a year, and so continued until nearly all the then arable land on 
that farm requiring it, (more than 600 acres,) had been covered. In 1821, 
my earliest publication on the subject was made. Though the facts and 
reasoning thus made known by that time were beginning to attract much 
notice, and to induce many persons to begin to marl, still it was some 
years later before incredulity and ridicule had generally given place to full 
confidence in the value of the improvement. Even at this time, when 
nearly 25 years of my own experience of marling and its benefits have 
passed, and the results are open to public notice and scrutiny, not half the 
persons who could marl are engaged at it, or are marling to but little pur- 
pose ; and of all who are using marl, nineteen in twenty are proceeding 
injudiciously, without regard to the mode of operation of the manure, and 
therefore are either doing harm, or losing profit, almost as often, though in 
less degree, as doing good. At this time, however, there are scarcely any 
persons, however negligent in practice, who do not fully admit the great 
value and certain profit of applying marl wherever it is found. 

" But with all the existing neglect of using this means of fertilization, and 
with all the still worse ignorance of or inattention to its manner of ope- 
rating, there never has been a new improvement in agriculture more ra- 
pidly extended, or with such beneficial and profitable results. In Prince 
George county, there is not one farmer having marl on or near his land, 
who has not applied it to greater or less extent, and always with more or 
less profit— and, in most cases, largely as well as profitably. In James 
City county there has been perhaps the next largest as well as the oldest 
practice. In York county, as in James City, some of the most valuable 
and profitable improvements by marling have been made. And some of 
the farms of both counties, adjoining Williamsburg, and having the benefit 
of putrescent town manures, show, more strikingly than any others known, 
the remarkable power of calcareous manure to fix the putrescent in the 
soil, and make them more efficient and far more durable. In Surry, Isle of 
Wight, Nansemond, Charles City, New Kent, Hanover, King William, King 
and Queen, Gloucester, and Middlesex counties, in the middle of the marl 
region of Virginia, marl has been already extensively applied, and the pro- 
fits therefrom are annually increasing. And in other surrounding counties, 
worse supplied with marl, the practice has been carried on in proportion to 
the facilities, and to the more scanty experience and degree of information 
on the subject. It would be a most important statistical fact, if it could be 
ascertained how much land in Virginia has already been marled. The 
quantity however is very great ; and all the land marled has been thereby 
increased in net product, on the general average, fully 8 bushels of corn or 
oats, or 4 bushels of wheat — and the land increased in intrinsic value fully 
200 per cent, on its previous value or market price. Where the marling 
has been judiciously conducted, these rates of increase have been more 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. 



165 



than doubled. From these data, might be calculated something like the 
already prodigiously increased values and products due solely to marling, 
and which will be still more increasing from year to year. If not already 
reached, the result will soon be reached, of new value to the amount of 
millions of dollars having been thus created. It is not designed in this 
hasty sketch to enter into minute details of results, nor to prescribe rules 
for practice, both of which have been given in other publications. The 
purpose here is but to state improvements and describe results in general. 

" It required the improvement by marling, on originally poor and middling 
soils, (or liming, which in final or general results is the same thing,) to ren- 
der as generally available the best and otherwise but rarely found benefits 
of the two kinds of vegetable manuring recommended by Taylor. When 
such soils have been made calcareous, by marling or liming, then, and not 
until then, all the benefits present and future, that his readers might have 
been induced to expect, may be confidently counted upon. In my own 
earlier practice — and Taylor had no greater admirer, or more implicit fol- 
lower— I found my farm-yard manurings on acid soils scarcely to pay the 
expense of application, and to leave no trace of the effect alter a very short 
time. And land, allowed to receive for its support all its vegetable growth 
(of weeds and natural grass) of two and a half years in every four, and the 
products in corn having been measured and compared, showed no certain 
increase in more than twenty years of such mild treatment. Since, on the 
same fields, farm-yard manures, in every mode of preparation and applica- 
tion, always tell well, both in early effect and in duration. And even the 
leaves raked up on wood-land, spread immediately and without any pre- 
paration as top-dressing on clover, always produce most manifest improve- 
ment, and -are believed to give more net profit than any application of the 
much richer farm-yard manure, per acre, made on like land before it is 
marled. This utilizing and fixing of other manures, and the fitting land 
to produce clover, which effects of marling are in addition to all the direct 
benefit produced, would alone serve to give a new face to the agriculture 
of the country. Whatever may be done by clover, and almost every 
thing that can be done to profit by vegetable manures, on the much larger 
proportion of the lands of lower Virginia, will be due to the application of 
marl or lime. 

" Liming. — The kindred improvement by liming began to be extensively 
practised on some of the best James river lands, where no marl was found, 
soon after the use of the latter began to extend. Who may have made 
the earliest and small applications of lime is not known, nor is it at all im- 
portant. The earlier profitable use of Jime in Pennsylvania, and the much 
earlier and more extended use in Britain, were known to every well-in- 
formed or reading farmer. Such a one was Fielding Lewis, of Charles 
City, as well as a most attentive, judicious, and successful practical cultiva- 
tor and improver. He is believed to have been the earliest considerable 
limer, and the one who obtained the most manifest profits therefrom, and 
whose example had most effect in spreading the practice. Some of his 
disciples and followers have since, in greater rapidity and wider extent of 
operations, far surpassed their teacher and leader — to whom, however, they 
award the highest meed of praise for bringing into use, and establishing, 
this great benefit to the agriculture of lower Virginia. Nearly all the best 
soils on James river are comparatively of low level, as if of ancient alluvial 
formation, and have no marl, with which the neighboring higher and poorer 
lands are mostly supplied. Of such rich lands are the farms of Weyanoke, 
Sandy Point, Westover, and Shirley, &c, in f harles City, and Brandon 
(Upper and Lower,) in Prince George— and on all these lands, as well as 

21 



\QQ CALCAREOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. 

some others, lime has been largely applied. The use is extending to the 
lands on all the tide waters of the state ; and it has recently received a 
new impulse from the low price at which northern stone-lime is now 
brought and sold. It is ready slaked, and the vessels are loaded in bulk. 
The lime is sold on James river at 1 cents the bushel, and even may be 
contracted for at 8 cents, from vessels that come for cargoes of wood, 
and would come empty but for bringing lime. The greater lightness and 
cheaper transportation of lime will enable it to be applied where marl 
eould not be carried with profit ; and with the two, there will be but little 
of lower Virginia which may not be profitably improved by calcareous 
manures."* 

* Extract from " Report to the State Board of Agriculture, on the most important 
recent improvements of agriculture in lower Virginia, and the most important defects 
yet remaining," Farmers' Register, p. 257, vol. x. 



ESSAY 



CALCAREOUS MANURES. 



PART THIRD— APPENDIX. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 

In the foregoing exposition of theory and practice, it has been the object 
and effort of the author to embrace whatever seemed necessary for proof 
or for illustration ; and to omit every thing else, lest too much of amplifica- 
tion or digression should weaken rather than strengthen the main positions. 
Thus it is believed that the foregoing chapters, as argument and proof, 
serve to establish the series of propositions which were at first advanced 
and throughout contended for. Still there remained many minor but inte- 
resting subjects more or less intimately connected with the investigation, 
and which well deserved more extended discussion, and the consideration 
of those readers who should desire to pursue farther the general object of this 
essay. These subjects will be treated separately in the different arti- 
cles of this appendix ; which may be read, it is believed, with both interest 
and benefit by the more inquiring class of readers ; or may be passed over, 
by the more cursory and careless, without detriment to the arguments and 
facts of the preceding portion and regular body of the work. 

Among the most important of the subjects to be thus treated at length, 
will be the remarkable and extensive deposites of gypseous earth, or green- 
sand earth, in lower Virginia, and its action as manure— the formation of 
prairies, (or lands divested of trees)— and the causes of, and remedies for 
malaria, and its train of diseases, which serve, aided by the operation of the 
evil legislative policy of Virginia, so grievously to afflict this now otherwise 
most fortunate and highly blessed agricultural region. Various other arti- 
cles will be presented, which will be but extensions of different parts of the 
foregoing text, and which will serve as additional proofs or illustrations of 
some of the positions before presented and maintained. 



NOTE I. — Extension of subject at page 54. 

PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF ACID SOILS, FURNISHED BY THE RECENT RESEARCHES 

OF CHEMISTS. 

The '■Traite de Chimie" is a French translation, by Esslinger, of the volu- 
minous and valuable work of the great Swedish chemist, Berzelius. The 
first edition of the original work, in the German language, and the French 



[QQ CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

translation of it were in the course of publication at the same time; and the 
first volumes of the latter were published at Paris, before the latter volumes 
of the original work had been sent to the press at Stockholm. The sixth 
volume of the French translation, from which I have translated the follow- 
ing extract into English, was printed in 1832. It is not known to me whe- 
ther the original work is in this country [1835.] 

The following passages contain the opinions of Berzelius, and of other 
chemists, on humin and humic acids, or as called here, geine and geic acid, 
and which were referred to in the quotation from Rennie, at page 54. It 
will be left to the reader to decide how far my views of acid soils are sup- 
ported by these new opinions of chemists, founded upon chemical analyses 
of the substances in question. It is proper to state that this new doctrine 
of geic or humic acid has not passed uncontroverted. It is altogether 
denied by Raspail, a French chemist, and who is a later writer than Ber- 
zelius. 

This article will offer scarcely any thing of interest to most readers, 
and is one of those which will be generally passed over. Its substance 
might indeed have been given more concisely, and perhaps in a more at- 
tractive form, if my object had been merely to exhibit the opinions now ge- 
nerally received among scientific men concerning acid in soil. But it was 
also designed to exhibit what was the utmost possible extent of scientific 
authority for this doctrine, so far as could have been known in this country 
when the last preceding edition of this essay was published in 1835. When 
my still earlier editions asserted the same doctrine, as then and now, there 
was not only no scientific authority for acid in soil, but all authority was 
opposed, either directly or indirectly. 

[translation.] 

Products of putrefaction at the surface of the earth. 

Mould (terreau.)— The vegetable matters which rot at the surface of the 
earth, finish by leaving a blackish brown pulverulent mass, which has re- 
ceived the name of mould [humus.] 

All the vegetation of a year, which dies at the arrival of winter, is con- 
verted by degrees to mould, which is mixed with the earth in which the 
plant grew ; whence it comes that the extreme surface of the earth con- 
tains a greater or less proportion of mould, which serves for the nutriment 
of the succeeding growth of plants. This mould, such as it is found in 
the earth, is often mingled with the products of a less advanced putrefac- 
tion, or even with vegetable parts not changed, principally a great quantity 
of small roots. If we examine the mould, such as it is found in cultivated 
soils, it is found to be in a mass very much mixed ; but it is always pos- 
sible to extract the parts which characterize mould. 

During the transformation of the vegetable matters to mould, the first 
portion of their mass is changed into a brownish black substance, which 
presents all the characters of apotheme* when we have separated from it 
the unaltered extract, which the apotheme draws with it. The salts of 
such acids as are of organic origin, contained in the vegetable matter, are 
destroyed, so that the elements of the acid are resolved into water and 
carbonic acid, whilst the base is combined with the substance analogous 

* What Berzelius calls apotheme is " a deposite slightly soluble in water, produced 
in an aqueous solution of vegetable extract during slow evaporation, and containing a 
larger proportion of carbon, than does an equal weight of extract." 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. jgy 

to apotlieme, which makes part of the mould. The salts of acids of mineral 
origin are preserved, unless they are soluble, in which case the rain car- 
ries them off. In addition, mould contains a substance but slightly soluble 
in water, which colors the liquid yellow, and a carbonaceous substance 
which is entirely insoluble, and which appeals to be one of the products of 
a destruction, still more advanced, of organic matters. 

To give an example of a completed formation of a mould of vegetable 
origin, I shall here state the results of an analysis to which Braconnot sub- 
mitted some wheat, which had remained during many centuries in a damp 
vault, the issues from which were stopped up by earth, and of which the 
existence was forgotten, until by chance it was again discovered. The 
grains had preserved their form, and the brightness of their outside skin ; 
but they were black, and were reduced by the slightest pressure to a black 
powder. The water with which they were boiled was colored yellow, and 
it left, after being evaporated, a saline mass of a brownish yellow, which 
burnt with slight explosion when heated, and which, besides the substance 
cited soluble in water, contained nitrate of potash, nitrate of lime, and a 
little of the muriates of potash and of lime. The nitrates were the result 
of the oxidation of the nitrogen contained in the gluten and vegetable 
albumen, and of the combination of the nitric acid thus produced, with the 
bases previously combined with vegetable acids. The weight of this mass 
soluble in water, including the salts and all the other principles, did not 
exceed 1| per cent, of the weight of the black grain. When the part in- 
soluble in water was boiled in alcohol, a small trace of a brown substance 
was taken up, which remained after evaporating the alcohol, and had the 
consistence of wax. The mass, exhausted of its soluble parts by boiling 
water and alcohol, was then heated slowly with a weak solution of caustic 
potash, which became saturated and colored of a blackish brown ; and this 
treatment was continued as long as new potash lie took up any thing. 
This substance was precipitated from the solution by an acid ; it was the 
body similar to apotlieme which has already been mentioned, and of which 
the weight amounted to 26 1 per cent. The portion of matter insoluble in 
the alkali preserved the same appearance. This, exposed to the action of 
diluted muriatic acid, yielded to it a certain quantity of lime, of oxide of 
iron, and of phosphate of lime. The residue was again acted on by potash, 
which took up a new and very large proportion of the body similar to 
apotlieme. This was after that combined with lime, and resisted in that 
state the action of potash. This calcareous combination amounted to 42 
hundredths. The 30 per cent, remaining consisted of a black carbona- 
ceous matter, insoluble in the solvent used. 

If cultivated soil is treated in the same manner, similar results will be 
obtained, with this difference, that the earthy matter of the soil is found 
mixed with the products which are obtained, whilst no soluble salts are 
met with, they being generally carried off by the rains. 

To describe the constituent principles of mould, it is necessary to desig- 
nate them by particular names. I will then call extract of mould the body 
soluble in water, and I will give the name of geine* to the matter similar 
to apotheme, which constitutes the principal mass of mould. As to the 
coally substance insoluble in water, alcohol, acids and alkalies, I will desig- 
nate it by the name of carbonaceous mould. 

Extract of mould.— We obtain this substance by drawing it from the 
mould by the action of cold water, which becomes thereby colored yellow, 
and which leaves, after evaporation, a yellow extract of a bitter taste, and 

* Or humin, as termed by other authora. 



|70 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

from which some geine is separated when it is again acted on by water. 
If this solution is left to evaporate spontaneously in contact with air, it 
becomes covered with an insoluble pellicle, and when a certain degree of 
concentration has been reached, the liquor becomes turbid. The solution 
is precipitated by the salts of tin and of lead; after the precipitation, the 
liquor is without color. According to Korte, the sulphuretted hydrogen 
gas precipitates it also. This extractive matter is contained in the water 
of many springs and streams. The water of the springs of Porla, in West- 
rogotha, contains so great a quantity that it is colored yellow. When the 
iron contained in this water is oxidized from the air, the extract of mould 
is precipitated with the oxide of iron, and the water becomes clear. 

Geine. — This substance has received different names. Braconnot has 
given to it the name of ulmin, for reasons which I have exhibited and op- 
posed in a former part of this work. Dobereiner and Sprengel gave to it 
the name of acid of humus, because it combines with the earths and alka- 
lies. But for the same reason we might give the name of acid to more 
than the half of all vegetable bodies. 

Geine does not exist in vegetable earth only ; soot contains it also, and 
according to Braconnot, it is formed when the saw-dust of wood is ex- 
posed to the action of caustic potash. It is almost impossible to obtain 
geine in a state of purity. One part of geine which is met with in a natu- 
ral state is in combination with bases ; but when we attempt to remove 
these by an acid, the geine combines in part with the excess of acid, and 
acquires itself (in part) the property of reddening vegetable blues. Geine 
possesses all the properties of apotheme, and it is produced like other apo- 
themes; that is to say, by the action of the air on dissolved extract of 
mould. In the natural state it does not act chemically, either like the acids 
or the alkalies. Nor does it have any effect on the color of vegetable blues. 
It is but slightly soluble in water, which it colors of a pale yellow; is still 
less soluble in alcohol, and insoluble in ether. Exposed to the action of heat 
it takes fire, burns at first with flame, then without flame like spunk, spread- 
ing a peculiar odor, something like that of burning peat. Submitted to dry 
distillation, it is decomposed, gives half its weight of a charcoal having 
a metallic lustre, of empyreumatic oil, an acid water containing acetic acid 
and sometimes ammonia, some carburetted hydrogen, and a little carbonic 
acid gas. If geine is held suspended in water, through which a current of 
chlorine is passed, this whitens it, and precipitates a white resin-like sub- 
stance. Iodine is without action on it. If we add an acid to an alka- 
line solution of geine, the geine is precipitated. If the whole of the geine 
is not precipitated, that part which is precipitated retains in combination a 
small portion of the base, and leaves, when it is burnt, a small quantity of 
alkaline ashes. If, on the contrary, an excess of acid is poured into the al- 
kaline solution, the liquor is discolored, and the precipitated geine strongly 
reddens vegetable blues, a property which cannot be removed by placing 
the geine on a filter, and pouring water upon it. So long as the liquor 
which passes through the filter contains free acid it is not colored ; then it 
begins to be colored, and finally it dissolves as much as two-thirds of its 
weight of the precipitated mass. These acid properties belong in part to 
the geine, which owes them to the action of the alkali, and which may, in 
this case, be called geic acid ; they ought to be in part attributed to a com- 
bination of the geine with the precipitated acid. According to Einhoff, it 
is the latter case which is really presented, and the acid cannot be carried 
off, but with the aid of an alkali. Sprengel, on the other hand, pretends 
to have freed the geine, by prolonged washing, from the muriatic acid 
which had served to precipitate it : and to make certain the absence of the 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. J7J 

muriatic acid, he has mixed the washed geine with a little nitrate of silver. 
After evaporation to dryness, and calcination, the residue, treated by nitric 
acid, was dissolved, without leaving any muriate of silver. But as muriate 
of silver, like the other salts of silver, is reduced to a metallic state by 
bodies containing carbon and hydrogen, and carbon itself effects the same 
change when disengaged along with water, this result proves nothing. In 
general, in the descriptions of geine, they have attributed the properties of 
that which has been changed by the action of an alkali, to the geine which 
has not been altered. The geine which reddens vegetable blues, is the 
same, whatever may have been the acid which served for its precipitation. 
Its saturated aqueous solution is of a yellowish brown, and the combina- 
tion is precipitated anew by acids, excepting the carbonic, and the sulphur- 
etted hydrogen. Collected upon a filter, it is presented under the form of 
a gelatinous mass, of a taste slightly acid, astringent— and by drying, it 
contracts strongly, and forms clots of a deep brown, almost black, with a 
vitreous fracture, and which are not dissolved again in water after being 
once completely dried. The aqueous solution of the acid geine, is precipi- 
tated by the salts of lead, of tin, and of iron ; but is not disturbed by gela- 
tine, albumen, starch, gum, tannin, or solution of soap. According to 
Braconnot, it is precipitated by a mixture of the solution of gelatine and 
gallic acid. The dried geine is dissolved with difficulty, and incompletely, 
in alcohol. The solution reddens vegetable blues, whilst the part not dis- 
solved is without this power, though it still preserves the property of com- 
bining with potash. Geine is destroyed by concentrated acids. The sul- 
phuric acid dissolves it, taking at the same time a black color, carbonizing 
it, disengaging sulphurous acid gas, and leaving for residue the ordinary 
products which result from the action of this acid. By the addition of sur- 
oxide (or black oxide) of manganese, carbonic acid gas is disengaged. 
The nitric acid dissolves and decomposes geine, with a disengagement of 
nitric oxide gas, and carbonic acid gas. If the solution is evaporated to 
the consistence of syrup, and then mixed with water, there is precipitated a 
peculiar bitter substance in powder, and there are found in the solution, 
artificial tannin and oxalic acid. 

Geine forms soluble combinations with alkalies. When an excess of 
geine is used, the caustic alkalies are so neutralized by this substance, that 
they lose their peculiar chemical action and properties. In this respect, 
geine agrees with gluten, vegetable albumen, the brown of indigo, the sugar 
of liquorice, apotheme, and other bodies not acid. During the evaporation 
the solution furnishes a black mass, which acquires lustre by complete dry- 
ing, and splits, and is easily reduced to a powder. It is redissolved in wa- 
ter, its taste is weak, bitter and disagreeable. Caustic ammonia gives a 
like mass, soluble in water, which gives up, during evaporation, the excess 
of alkali employed. Geine is not dissolved always in alkaline carbonates; 
when it is so dissolved, these carbonates are transformed, half into geates, 
half into bi-carbonates. When the solution is boiled, the bi-carbonate is 
decomposed with disengagement of carbonic acid gas, and in this manner 
the geine drives off all the carbonic acid. If a solution of geine in car- 
bonate of ammonia is evaporated, a residue is obtained containing neu- 
tralized geate of ammonia. The solution of geine in caustic potash, in ex- 
cess, absorbs oxygen from the air, and at the end of some time, the alkali 
is in part carbonated. 

Geine forms with the alkaline earths pulverulent combinations but little 
soluble, which have an external resemblance to geine. The best means for 
obtaining them is to mix a solution of the geate of ammonia, with the solu- 



] 72 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

tion of an earthy salt ; the combination of the geine with the earth is pre- 
cipitated, and may be separated by filtration, from the supernatant fluid. 
In the humid state, these compounds are slightly soluble in water. Accord- 
ing to the experiments of Sprengel, one part ot geate ofbarytes is dissolved 
in 5200 parts of water, one part of geate of lime is soluble in 2000 parts of 
water, and one part of geate of magnesia in 160 parts of water, cold. 
These same compounds require for their solution, rather smaller proportions 
of boiling water. After having been completely dried they will no more 
dissolve. In the air, the base is combined in part with carbonic acid, and 
the carbonate which results therefrom remains in the state of mixture 
with a combination of geine, and of a base analogous to a supersalt. The 
alkaline carbonates decompose the earthy geates ; they dissolve the geine, 
and leave the base in the state of carbonate. According to Sprengel, the 
geates of lime and magnesia are dissolved in the caustic fixed alkalies, and 
in the carbonate of ammonia. Other chemists have not arrived at the 
same result ; and according to them, the geate of potash, acted on by the 
hydrate of lime, precipitates all the geine. The geate of alumina is pre- 
cipitated when a solution of alum is mixed with a solution of geate of pot- 
ash, or of ammonia. This compound is dissolved in 4200 parts of cold 
water. In the moist state it is dissolved easily, and in abundance, in the 
alkaline carbonates and hydrates, and even in ammonia. According to 
Sprengel, it resists the decomposing action of acids, so that it is difficult to 
extract from it geine exempt from alumine. A combination is obtained 
having an excess of alumine, by digesting a solution of the geate of am- 
monia with hydrate of alumina. * * * * 

Carbonaceous mould. — The substance to which this name has been given 
has been but little examined. It is insoluble in alkaline liquors. Its color 
- is a brown, almost black. Placed in contact with a body in combustion, 
it takes fire, and burns without flame like spunk. According to the experi- 
ments of Th. de Saussure, carbonaceous mould combines with the oxygen 
of the air, and forms carbonic acid gas, and when it is left a long time 
exposed to air and water, it becomes by slow degrees soluble in alkalies. 
The acids precipitate it from the alkaline solution, in the state of acid 
geine. When cold, the sulphuric acid has but little effect on it. Accord- 
ing to Braconnot, the nitric acid converts it at a gentle heat to a brown 
liquor, in which water produces a precipitate of a chocolate color, which 
possesses the properties of acid geine, and is dissolved without residue in 
the alkalies. 

Soil (terre vegetate). — It is the mixture of these several substances with 
the upper layer of the surface of the earth, which constitutes the vegetable 
earth or soil, properly so called. Arable land is a bed of this soil, placed 
upon a bed of earth which contains no mould. Its fertility depends upon 
the quantity of mould which it contains. Growing plants continually 
diminish the quantity of geine contained in the soil ; and when the plants 
are carried off from the soil on which they grew, which happens almost 
always with cultivated land, it is finally exhausted to that degree as to 
produce nothing. It is on this account that it is necessary to manure land. 
The matters discharged and left by animals, or the barn-yard manure 
which is used for this purpose, are by degrees converted into geine, and 
thus replace the matters dissipated by vegetation. Botanists, who have 
directed their attention to vegetable physiology, have remarked that the 
plants vegetate well enough without geine, until the time arrives for them 
to commence their sexual functions. But as soon as these are ended and 
the fruit begins to be developed, the plants absorb a great quantity of the 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. J73 

nutritive principles contained in the soil, and if these are not in the soil, 
the flower falls without forming any fruit. The experiments to which 
Th. de Saussure has submitted soil, [terre vegetale] appear to demonstrate 
that the three constituent principles of mould may be converted the one 
to the other, under the alternately preponderating influence of air and 
water. Water converts to the extract of mould a part of the insoluble 
geine contained in the soil, and this transformation extends more and more, 
so that finally the greater part of the geine becomes soluble. In contaet 
with the air, the dissolved matter passes again to the state of geine. The 
carbonaceous mould which changes a part of the air into carbonic acid, is 
itself changed by air into geine and into extract of mould, and it is upon 
this transformation that appear to depend in part the advantages derived 
from the tillage of the soil, which is divided by the action of the plough, 
and exposed to the immediate influence of the air. In this manner all the 
parts of the soil contribute to nutrition ; whilst it is probable that the solu- 
tion of the extract of mould, that of the geate of lime, and perhaps also 
that of the geate of alumine, are immediately absorbed by the roots. During 
a heavy rain, this solution penetrates the interior, and often to very deep 
beds of the sterile earth ; but notwithstanding that, it is not lost to vegetable 
life ; for the roots of trees seek it, and bring it back as matter suitable 
for their nourishment. 

Experience has demonstrated that quick-lime and the carbonate of lime 
mingled with the soil, favor the vegetation produced thereon. Chemistry 
has not yet explained, in a satisfactory manner, the power which lime thus 
exerts; however, it is known that when the soil contains this alkaline 
earth, or, in its place, ashes only, the mould is quickly consumed, and vege- 
tation becomes more rich in proportion. It has thence been concluded 
that lime acts, partly in exciting the plant to greater activity, and partly in 
rendering more soluble the principles of the soil, which are absorbed by 
the roots when dissolved in the water which the earth has imbibed. Lime 
is not then a true [or alimentary] manure. It contributes only to pro- 
mote and hasten the absorption of the principles which serve to nourish 
the plant ; and that lime may be serviceable, it is necessary to introduce 
into the soil improved by lime, materials proper to furnish new quantities 
of mould. The lime or alkali contained in ashes acts also in hastening 
the change of organic matters to mould. 

It is known by experience, that gypsum also augments the fertility of the 
earth, especially when leguminous plants are cultivated. It is not probable 
that this neutral salt acts in the same manner as lime, and we are ignorant 
of what is its mode of acting. 

Soil [terre vegetale] possesses the property of being able to retain as 
much as three-fourths of its weight of water without appearing moist, and, 
like charcoal, it condenses atmospheric humidity. It owes this property to 
the geine which it contains, which is one of the substances that, of all 
known, absorbs moisture with most energy. Mould [terreau] can absorb 
double its weight of water, without appearing moist ; and after being 
dried, it draws from the air, in less than twenty-four hours, a quantity of 
water, which may vary according to the humidity of the atmosphere, from 
80 to 100 per cent, of its weight. This property depends upon its light 
and dust-like consistence; and geine, of which the fracture becomes vi- 
treous from its course of chemical treatment, is deprived of this physical 
property, which is of the utmost importance to vegetable life. For, in con- 
sequence of this property, mould retains water in the earth and obstructs 
its evaporation ; and it is probably this water which maintains the extre- 
mities of the roots in the state to perform their functions. 

22 



174 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



It is usual to divide soil into fertile earth, and acid earth.* The first is 
very common, the second presents itself but rarely. It produces nothing, 
unless it be mosses ; it is in marshy places that it is ordinarily found. It 
is in general composed in the same manner as fertile earth ; but whilst in 
the latter the geine is united with lime, and perhaps with other bases be- 
sides, it is in the acid earth combined with acids, which, according to 
Einhof, are the phosphoric and acetic acids. It is for this reason that it 
has the property of reddening vegetable blues, and that it gives, by calcina- 
tion, ashes which contain phosphoric acid. To dry distillation, it yields a 
great quantity of an acid liquid, containing the acetate of ammonia ; and 
when it is distilled, after having mixed it with water, a liquid product is 
obtained, which reddens vegetable blues, and likewise contains acetate of 
ammonia. In opposition to Einhof, Sprengel affirms that the acid geine is 
produced only for the want of bases, and that its acid action proceeds 
only from the geic acid which it contains, and not from the presence of a 
foreign acid. De Pontin has made the analysis of an acidf soil taken from 
the plain of Eckerud, in the government of Elfsburg, in Sweden, and found 
that the geine had there combined with the malic, acetic, and phosphoric 
acids. The dissolving of the soluble principles of the soil in boiling water, 
left to be deposited when the hydrate of lime was mixed therein, these acids 
as well as geine, so that there was found afterwards in the water only 
traces of the acetate and hydrate of lime. But when a current of carbonic 
acid gas was made to pass through this precipitate, steeped in water, the 
geine remained, without dissolving, in combination with the carbonate of 
lime produced, while there was formed a solution slightly yellowish, which 
left after evaporation a residue of calcareous salts. This residue was 
treated by alcohol, which took up a certain quantity of acetate of lime, and 
' left a salt of lime of a gummy appearance, which was soluble in water, 
and possessed the properties of the malate of lime. In burning the geate 
of lime, and taking up the residue by muriatic acid, there was obtained a 
solution which when treated by ammonia gave a small precipitate of phos- 
phate of lime. The greater part of the acid geine was dissolved in the 
carbonate of ammonia. Hydrate of lime was poured into the solution, 
which precipitated the geine without leaving in solution a salt of lime. 
But when after having washed the precipitate, it was calcined, and the 
residue treated with muriatic acid, there was obtained a solution, which, 
after the expulsion of th ; carbonic acid, gave with ammonia an abundant 
precipitate of the phosphate of lime. These experiments confirm those 
given by Einhof. 

An acid soil becomes fertile when there is mixed with it lime or ashes 

* It is not a little strange to say it is " usual [dans I'usage] to divide soils into fertile 
earth and acid earth," when the acid nature of any has been treated by Berzelius as a 
new discovery, and of which the truth is not admitted by all of those who had taken 
the subject into consideration. If this division had indeed been usual, there would 
have been no want of numerous authorities (whatever might be their value) for the 
acidity of soil. — Translator. 

t In the French version, this word was " aride," and also in the two other places 
where it is used below soon after. But though the context made it almost certain that 
this was an error of the press, and that the word should have been acide, I did not 
venture to make the alteration in a preceding edition, but merely stated in a note, the 
doubt, and probable grounds of error. Very lately, (1842,) I saw for the first time the 
German work by Berzelius, in the library of Professor J. C. Booth of Philadelphia, and 
by aid of his knowledge of the language, I was enabled to make sure that the error was 
as I had supposed. Though the book lately examined was the second edition, the ex- 
tract was translated (through the French) from Berzelius' first edition, and there is no 
difference in the above paragraph, except that in the latter he has added the term " un- 
fruitful" to "acid soil," [unfruchtbare saure Dammerde.] — Translator. 



CALCAREul S MANURES-APPENDIX. 



175 



and earth, inasmuch as the soil consists principally of geine. The report 
of Sprengel, according to which, it [this character of soil] is produced in 
consequence of the absence of the bases which are found in fertile earth, 
is certainly true: but it does not follow from that, that it owes its acidity 
solely to the acid nature of the geine. The ashes of acid soil always con- 
tain a great quantity of silex. 



NOTE II. — Extension of subject of pages 58 — Gl. 

ADDITIONAL PROOF OFFERED, BY THE PRODUCTION" AND EXISTENCE OF BLACK WA- 
TERS, OF THE ACTION OF LIME IN COMBINING VEGETABLE MATTERS WITH SOIL. 

Every person who has seen much of the different parts of lower Virgi- 
nia, (to go no farther for examples.) must hav,e remarked the dark perma- 
nent color of the waters of many streams and mill-ponds ; and that others, 
whether when clear or when turbid, are at all times and entirely without 
any tinge of this peculiar coloring matter. The waters thus colored by ve- 
getable matter are more deeply tinted at some times than at others ; but are 
always strongly thus marked. These waters, when several feet in depth, 
appear to the eye quite black or very dark brown. The same if viewed in 
a drinking glass would appear of the color of Sherry wine, and might present 
some shade between the palest and deepest tints of such wine. This color has 
nothing of muddiness; for these waters are as clear from suspended clay or 
mud as any other waters not so colored in the slightest degree. In the county 
in which nearly all my life has been passed, Prince George, these different 
kinds of waters are to be seen in stronger contrast, because of their close 
neighborhood. All the streams which flow into Blackwater river, as well as 
the main stream, which that name so well describes, from its head to its out- 
let, are colored deeply, and it is believed without exception. On the contrary, 
the streams which flow into James river often rise from sources very near to 
some of the others, the head-springs being on opposite sides of the same 
dividing ridge of level table land, and in lands precisely alike. Some of 
these lands are of close and stiff soil, and some more sandy and quite 
light; but all are level, poor, and acid lands, and are mostly still under 
forest growth. 

A 11 persons, whether of the most or the least observant class, would 
concur in the opinion that this color proceeds from vegetable matter. This 
is obvious even in the waters of heavy rains, which when more than the 
level ridge lands can absorb, flow off, and are sometimes for a day or more 
thus passing in temporary streams to the nearest valley, or other descent. 
These surplus waters, while yet on the highest woodland, are colored to a 
greater or less depth of tint ; and just as much in those which take their 
course towards James river, as the others which flow in the opposite direc- 
tion to the Blackwater. The difference is that the former soon lose all such 
coloring matter, and in no case carry it to or even near James river, whilst 
the other waters increase in depth of color with the length of their course, 
or the duration of time they remain in the mill-p^nds they pa . or 

in the sluggish Blackwater river. 

The supply of coloring matter is principally furnished by the dead and 
fallen leaves in the poor forest land, and is doubtless increased afterwards, 
both by the partial evaporation of the water, and by its dissolving still 
more of the soluble vegetable extract in the flat swampy grounds through 
which the streams flow into the Blackwater. This might indeed satisfactorily 



J76 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

account for these waters being more deeply colored than those which pass 
by a more rapid descent to James river. But these different circumstances 
do not serve at all to explain why the latter waters should soon lose, if they 
had it at first, the slightest trace of color. 

The like circumstances are probably to be found to more or less extent 
in most of the counties on our tide-water rivers, as most of them have poor 
forest lands and some swampy streams in the interior. 

As the opposite circumstances of the presence or absence of color in 
different waters is certainly not caused by such difference in the sources of 
supply, they must be caused by some subsequent action which serves to 
clear the waters in one locality, by combining with and taking off the dis- 
solved coloring matter, and which action does not take place elsewhere, 
because there is no such efficient agent present. That agent I take to be 
carbonate of lime, or some other salt of lime in the soil in the one case, 
and which is present in quantity altogether insufficient for such action in 
the other case. According to the views which were presented (page 58) 
in regard to the power of calcareous earth to combine chemically with 
vegetable matter, if the colored waters should flow over soils furnished with 
calcareous matter, or into streams impregnated with any salts of lime, it 
would follow that the suspended or dissolved vegetable extract would com- 
bine with the calcareous matter of the soil in the water, and the new com- 
bination be precipitated, and be given to the soil, as manure, either imme- 
diately or remotely. This effect would be greatly aided if the streams 
swollen by rains actually passed in contact with and washed away exposed 
banks of marl. All recent rain water contains a small amount of carbonic 
acid, and that impregnation enables water to dissolve a proportional quan- 
tity of carbonate of lime, which is insoluble in water without this addition 
of carbonic acid. Therefore, in such circumstances the swollen streams 
and land floods would necessarily dissolve some carbonate of lime, which 
would be thus placed immediately and fully in mixture and perfect contact 
with the before dissolved vegetable coloring matter, and next must take 
place the combination of the two, and precipitation of the compound ma- 
nure. The consequence must be, that the lands thus overflowed must be 
more or less enriched by every heavy rain ; while the lands overflowed by 
the colored waters receive, or retain, nothing of soluble vegetable matter from 
this source, and may even lose part of what they had before received from 
the decay of their own growth, or other sources, by its being dissolved 
and carried off by such overflowing waters. 

Now let us see how the actual results agree with these different causes, 
so far as the causes are known to exist. In the limited region particularly 
referred to above, the low grounds, subject to inundation by rains in a 
state of nature, and having beds of marl which the stream cuts through, 
are of much richer soil than any others, though the quantity of marl displaced 
by the stream (if indeed any such displacing be perceptible) would seem 
altogether too small in amount to produce such extent of fertilization by 
direct action. And it is believed, whether marl beds be so exposed or not, 
that the low-grounds on the streams of colorless water are always much 
better 6oils, and of more durable fertility, than those washed by colored 
waters. The latter soils being often swampy, are full of vegetable matter, 
and of course would be very productive when first drained and cultivated. 
But these soils are far from being among the most durable, and they are 
even at first, and when in best condition, very inferior lands to most low- 
grounds of prime quality ; and the latter are always penetrated by streams, 
or had been sometimes covered by floods, which, however turbid at certain 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 177 

times with suspended clay and mud, are never colored by vegetable ex- 
tractive or soluble matter alone. 

If we go farther for examples, the effects will be found to be still more 
striking. None of the lime-stone streams are ever colored ; and their re- 
markable transparency, very far surpassing that of the most pure and 
limpid waters of the low country, show that the dissolved lime, which the 
mountain streams contain, serves to remove every thing of coloring matter. 
These lime-stone waters, and land floods from rains which also necessarily 
carry dissolved carbonate of lime, form the principal supply of the upper 
James river. But long before the waters reach the head of tide, not a 
particle of lime remains. The dissolved lime had been continually uniting 
with the suspended or dissolved vegetable matter, until no lime was 
left, and the precipitated compound had served to add more manure to the 
extensive low-grounds along the whole course of the upper James river, 
and which are so well known and deservedly celebrated for their great 
and enduring fertility and high value. 

When a resident of the lower country first visits our mountain and 
lime-stone region, he cannot avoid observing and being forcibly impressed 
by the remarkable clearness of the waters. Pools and basins in the 
streams containing six feet depth of water, will appear to his unprac- 
tised eye as not deeper than two or three feet. And it is only by com- 
parison, and by becoming acquainted with this really and perfectly clear 
lime-stone water, he learns that he had, in truth, never before seen a stream 
or pond of perfectly clear water. Though the dissolved matters may be 
in too small quantity to produce any appearance of color, they serve to 
impair the transparency of the water. And when any such coloring or 
vegetable matters are received into and intermixed with lime-stone streams, 
the vegetable matter is immediately combined with lime, and the compound 
precipitated ; still leaving in the water a great excess of dissolved lime, 
scarcely diminished by the loss of the small part acting to clear the water 
of all coloring and vegetable impregnation. 

From the large proportion of lime held in solution by lime-stone springs, 
and the streams proceeding from them, and also by rain floods passing 
over lime-stone soils, it must be inferred, (according to my views,) that such 
waters must very quickly combine with and precipitate all coloring matters, 
and, when not turbid with earthy matter, be as transparent as water can 
possibly be. Hence, the well known and remarkable transparency of such 
water is not directly caused (as commonly understood) by lime be- 
ing contained in them — but because of the other adulterations being 
totally removed in combination with a part of that dissolved lime. Thus, 
the water is not in the least made crystalline and transparent because of 
what it contains, but because of what it has been deprived of. And, there- 
fore, even after all the lime may have been precipitated, the water must 
retain its previous perfect transparency, unless subsequently impregnated 
with other coloring matter. 

The additional supply of carbonic acid to water, which alone gives to it 
the power to dissolve or to retain in solution even the smallest proportion of 
carbonate of lime, is not strongly held. It is given off by the lime-stone 
water in its partial evaporation, and to every contact of atmospheric air ; 
and this operation is increased by such agitation of the water as exposes 
a larger surface to the air. Hence, at all rapids of lime-stone streams, 
there is a peculiarly rapid and large deposition of carbonate of lime, let 
loose by the water because of the loss of the proportion of carbonic acid 
which before served to hold the lime dissolved in the water. This pre- 
cipitation and gradual accumulation of carbonate of lime, at the rapids and 



178 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

cascades of streams, is the formation called calcareous tufa or travertine, 
and vulgarly called " marl" in our mountain region, and which is presented 
in great quantity, and sometimes in enormous masses. 

As lime-stone water so easily parts with the carbonic acid which enables 
it to hold lime in solution, it can scarcely be supposed that any of the acid 
remains after the water collects and remains long in the great reservoirs 
formed in lakes. But whether the water remains impregnated with car- 
bonic acid, and of course with lime, or has lost both, the effect is the same, 
and is exhibited most strongly in the remarkable transparency of lakes 
so formed. Of such, I have never myself witnessed any but of Lake George, 
in New York. And after the long lapse of time since my short visit to 
this lake, I cannot remember to what extent the transparency of its waters 
was asserted, or what my own personal observation ascertained. I only re- 
member certainly that the depth of water through which very small objects 
were distinctly visible was very great, and that no ground was left to doubt 
what is generally asserted and received as true on that head. 

To return to the lands ami waters of Prince George county. The 
water left by heavy rains, standing in shallow pools on the high level wood- 
land, and flowing off" in temporary rivulets, is seen to be colored by vegeta- 
ble matter even within a mile of James river, just as it is found on the other 
lands sloping towards the Blackwater. But in either and every known case 
of such discoloration being caused, it is on poor and acid land. No such 
effect takes place on calcareous or» even neutral soil, no matter how abun- 
dantly it is provided with dead leaves or other vegetable matter. There- 
fore it is manifest that it is not difference of locality, but difference of soil, 
which causes the different effects of the surplus rain water becoming 
tinged, and remaining tinged with vegetable extract, or otherwise remain- 
ing colorless. And also, after the water has been so tinged, that it depends 
on the difference of chemical composition in the soils over which it passes, or 
of the streams into which it is discharged, whether the color remains or is 
quickly discharged. And, as already stated, this difference of action and effect 
depends on the absence or presence of lime in the soils or waters to which 
the colored excess of rain water flows. 

It is only in the surplus quantity of rain water, or that which is more 
than the soil can absorb, that this coloring matter is seen. But it is not the 
less certain that all of the much greater quantity of water from more gentle 
and more frequent rains which soak into the earth, must also be more or 
less tinged with the coloring matter of the leaves and other dead vegeta- 
ble matter through which the water passes, and must take up in passing all 
that is then easily soluble, and not chemically combined with some other 
body. Thus, every gentle and soaking rain probably carries into the soil 
the greater part of all the »then soluble vegetable matter, and that only 
which is soluble is all that is then completely ready to act as food for plants. 
The same rain, and the subsequent chemical action of air and warmth, 
cause the decomposition of the before insoluble vegetable matter to recom- 
mence, and in a few days there is a renewed supply of soluble or extractive 
matter formed in the vegetable cover of the soil, ready to be dissolved and 
to be carried into the earth by the next succeeding rain. 

Such is Nature's process of furnishing alimentary manure, or the food of 
plants, to soils. And the source of supply is unlimited ; for it is principally 
from the atmosphere and water, and by fixing their elements, (oxygen, ni- 
trogen, hydrogen and carbon,) that the vegetable growths of soils, and con- 
sequently all alimentary manures, are formed. 

As enormous then as is the continual waste of vegetable extractive mat- 
ter and manure that is caused by every heavy rain, and which is always 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. ] 79 

eyident to the eye in the black waters of so many ponds and streams, all 
this lost fertilizing matter must be in very small proportion, compared to 
the greater quantity that is carried more gradually and frequently into 
the earth. Much the greater part of the wood-land of lower Virginia is 
most freely and abundantly thus supplied, not only because of the abun- 
dant sources presented in a thick layer of fallen leaves, the growth of 
many successive years, but also because of the very level surface of the 
land, which obstructs the flowing off of the surplus rain water, and the ge- 
neral sandy and open texture of the soil and sub-soil, which operate to 
absorb quickly the water and its dissolved vegetable matter. Yet it is 
more especially these lands that show the least remaining and abiding store 
of this supply of vegetable manure. The soil, or all of the upper part 
which shows any color from containing vegetable matter, is usually not 
more than two inches thick on sandy soils, and still less on the stiffest ; and 
all the portion below, (though necessarily manured by being often soaked 
to a foot or more with rain-water conveying all its dissolved vegetable ex- 
tract,) is entirely barren and worthless. Such results would be as inex- 
plicable as they are wonderful, but for the reasons afforded by the doctrine 
of the combining and fixing powers of carbonate of lime and vegetable 
salts of lime ; the absence of which ingredients is the sole defect in these 
cases, and which, when present in soils, show results of fertilization altoge- 
ther the reverse of these. Where lime is present in sufficient quantity, no 
coloring or manuring matter is lost to the soil in the flowing off" of surplus 
water, nor in the wasteful and profitless decomposition of the greater 
quantity of coloring and alimentary matter soaked into the earth. 

My observation was not attracted to the cause of the existence of black 
waters, and this application of the facts, until nearly the close of my resi- 
dence in the country, and of my opportunities for personal and accurate 
observation. And I am well aware, and ready to admit, that previous ob- 
servations, made by mere chance and without object, are worth very little 
comparatively. I therefore would be glad to have the attention of other ob- 
servers drawn to this point, and any facts to be elicited that will either confirm 
or disprove my positions. From inquiries made of persons who have had 
ample opportunity to observe what waters were either permanently black 
or without tinge of such vegetable stain, I have heard the following general 
statements of facts, on which my comments will be offered as the facts are 
presented. 

Streams and ponds of black waters are rarely seen above the falls of 
the rivers; and are believed to be very rarely found even twenty to 
thirty miles above. They are never seen in the still higher lime-stone 
region. If this opinion be correct, then these waters are confined exclusively 
(as they certainly are mainly) to the region of soil of the most add quality. 
At the distance above the falls where black waters are never found, the 
high land was naturally in general of good quality, and the bottom or 
alluvial lands, on small streams, invariably of good soil. Of course these 
qualities indicate more of lime in the soil; and, according to my views, also 
the inability of water to become black, or at least to remain colored.* 

The waters of Blackwater river and its tributary streams and swamps 
become darker in autumn, owing to the low level of the surface at that sea- 
son. This is according to sound reason; as evaporation of the solvent fluid 
necessarily increases the strength of the solution. But this cause is held 

* The extract translated from M. Puvis' ' Essaisur la Mcurne,' and introduced at page 
150 of this essay, affords testimony that the facts in regard to the existence and localities 
of black waters in France accord strictly with the views presented in this article. He 
says there that, " during the month of August, the water of the ponds on calcareous 
soil does not become blackish, as often happens in silicious ponds." 



I gO CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX 

by most persons as secondary in force to another, viz: the dropping of the 
leaves, and especially of the numerous black-gum trees, and their berries, 
at that season, on the swamps and in the streams. Of course such is the 
source of the coloring matter ; but it would produce no notable or abiding 
effect, but for the want of lime both in the soil and in the water. The ex- 
tensive tide swamps on the creeks of James river, are covered with a dense 
growth of trees, of which a large proportion are black-gums. Yet in the 
numerous rills trickling or oozing out of these soils, after some days of 
low tides, I have never observed the water to be dark, or in the least dis* 
colored. Yet the soil of these tide swamps is as much of vegetable forma- 
tion as any capable of bearing trees, and is believed to be more so than the 
swamp lands of Blackwater river and its tributaries. Therefore it is not 
the abundance of dead vegetable matter in a soil, nor the quantity or kind 
of leaves furnished by the trees growing on it, which alone or together 
produce colored waters. The earthy portion of the soil of these tide 
marshes and swamps, small as is its amount, is not acid, but neutral, and 
the lime contained serves to prevent the water remaining discolored. 

Yet this is not always the case on tide swamps. The waters of Poco- 
moke river, flowing into the Chesapeake, are black, which I presume is 
owing to the deficiency of lime in the water and in the surface soil of the 
lands from which the waters flow. 

The great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and its lake, and the still more ex- 
tensive swamps and lakes of North Carolina, all present black waters, and 
which may all be accounted for by the reasons here given. 

Neither is it necessary that marl beds should be wanting to produce the 
effect of black waters. It is only necessary that the marl (no matter how 
abundant) should be so far below the surface as not to affect the overflow- 
ing waters, and that the soil of the higher lands should be generally of acid 
quality. Such are the lands on Blackwater river and its tributaries. And 
though marl was scarcely known any where there twenty years ago, it is 
now known to be abundant, and generally to be found, though almost al- 
ways a few feet below the surface of the low lands. 

Many persons who would concur with me as to the premises and results, 
would yet ascribe the coloring of certain waters to the more level surface of 
the land, and the more sluggish and stagnant state of the waters; and would 
suppose the absence of coloring matter in the waters of the upper country to 
be caused by the rapidity of the descent and of the passage of the streams. 
This would be a correct view, if the matter in question were the degree of 
intensity of color, instead of the existence or entire absence of color. It is 
true, and obvious, that if the colored waters which now creep and stagnate 
over the level lands below the falls, had as rapid a descent and free discharge 
as the mountain torrents, their color could not be made deeper by the long 
infusion of the leaves, nor by evaporation of still waters. But though the color 
would be much more pale, its existence would not be the less certain. The 
source of coloring matter, the soaking of dead leaves, &c., in rain water, is as 
abundant in the upper as in the lower country; and the more rapid discharge 
of the waters, if no other cause of clearing them operated, would not pre- 
vent their becoming and remaining colored, as generally, and, however more 
pale in tint, would be seen as obviously, as in the most level lands. But this 
is not all. Though there is almost no level land, and therefore no swamps 
in the hilly or still less in the mountain region, there are mill-ponds in the 
lower hilly country, and natural lakes in the mountain region. If there 
was the slightest tint of dissolved coloring matter in the streams, the wa- 
ters when collected in these deep reservoirs could not fail to exhibit the color 
much more deeply. Yet no one such fact is known, or is believed to have 
existence. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX j g j 

NOTE 111. — Extension of the subject of page 68. 

THE STATEMENTS OP BRITISH AUTHORS ON MARL, AND THEIR APPLICATIONS 0! 
NAME, GENERALLY INCOKRECT AND CONTRADICTORY. 

Custom compels me to apply improperly the name marl to our deposites 
of fossil shells. But as I have defined the manuring by this substance, which 
is called marUng, to be simply making; a soil calcareous, or more so than it 
was before, any term used for that operation would serve, if its meaning 
was always kept in view. But this term, unfortunately, is of old and fre- 
quent use in English books, with very different meanings. The existence 
of these differences and errors has been generally stated in the foregoing 
pages of this essay, and I shall here present the proofs. The following 
quotations will show that the term marl is frequently applied in Britain to 
clays containing no known or certain proportion of calcareous earth— that 
when calcareous earth is known to be contained, it is seldom relied on as 
the most valuable part of the manure— and that in many cases the reader 
is left in doubt tvhether the manure has served to increase, or diminish, or 
has not altered materially the amount of the previous calcareous contents 
of the soil. 

The passages quoted will exhibit so fully the striking contradictions and 
ignorance generally prevailing as to the nature and operation of marl, that 
it will scarcely be necessary for me to express dissent in every case, or to 
point out the errors or uncertainty of facts, or of reasoning, which will ap- 
pear so manifestly and abundantly. 

1. Kirwan, on the authority of Arthur Young and the Bath Memoirs, 
[1783,] states that, 

" In some parts of England, where husbandry is successfully practised, any loose clay is 
called marl : in others, marl is called chalk, and in others, clay is called loam." — Kirwan 
on Manures, p. 4. 

2. The learned and practical Miller thus defines and describes marl, in 
the Abridgment of the Gardener's Dictionary, fifth London edition, at the 
article marl : 

" Marl is a kind of clay which is become fatter and of a more enriching quality, by a 
better fermentation, and by its having Iain so deep in the earth as not to have spent or 
weakened its fertilizing quality by any product. Marls are of diffeient qualities in dif- 
ferent counties of England." 

He then names and describes ten varieties, most of them being very mi- 
nutely and particularly characterized — and in only two of the ten is there 
any allusion to a calcareous ingredient, and in these, it is evidently not 
deemed to constitute their value as manures. These are "the cowshut 
marl" of Cheshire, which — 

" I? of a brownish color, with blue veins in it, and little lumps of chalk or limestone,'' — 
and " clay-marl ; this reseinblr-s clay, and is pretty near akin to it. nut is fetti r, and some- 
times mixed with chalk stones. 

" The properties of any sorts of marls, by which the goodness of them maj bi best 
known, are better judged of by their purity and uncompoundedness, thai) their color : as 
if it will break in pieces like dice, or into thin flakes, or is smooth like lead ore, and is 
without a mixture of gravel or sand; if it will slake like .-; 

wet, or will tumble into dust, when it has been exposed to the sun ; or will not hang and 
stick together when it is thoroughly dry, like tough clay ; but is fat and tender, and will 
open the land it is laid on, and not bind : it may be taken for granted that it will he be- 
neficial to it." 

3. Johnson's Dictionary (octavo edition) defines marl in precisely the 
words of the first sentence <>( Miller, as quoted above. 



182 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



4. Walker's Dictionary (octavo edition) gives only the following defini- 
tion — " Marl — a kind of clay much used for manure." 

5. A Practical Treatise on Husbandry, (2nd London edition 4to, 1762,) 
which professes to be principally compiled from the writings of Duhamel, 
Evelyn, Home, and Miller, supplies the following quotations : 

" But of all the manures for sandy soils, none is so good as mad. There are many 
different kinds and colors of it, severally distinguished by many writers ; but their vir- 
tue is the same ; they may be all used upon the same ground, without the smallest dif- 
ference in their effect. The color is either red, brown, yellow, gray, or mixed. It is to 
be known by its pure and uncompounded nature. There are many marks to distinguish 
it by ; such as its breaking into little square bits ; its falling easily into pieces, by the 
force of a blow, or upon being exposed to the sun and the frost ; its feeling fat and oily, 
and shining when 'tis dry. But the most unerring way to judge of marl, and know it from 
any other substance, is to break a piece as big as a nutmeg, and when it is quite dry, 
drop it into a glass of clear water, where, if it be right, it will dissolve and crumble, as it 
were, to dust, in a little time, shooting up sparkles to the surface of the water." — p. 27. 

— Not the slightest hint is here of any calcareous ingredient being neces- 
sary, or even serving in any manner to distinguish marl. But afterwards, 
in another part of this work, when shell marl is slightly noticed, it is said : 

" This effervesces strongly with all acids, which is perhaps chiefly owing to the shells. 
There are very good marls which show nothing of this effervescence : and therefore the 
author of the New System of Agriculture judged right in making its solution in water the 
distinguishing mark." — p. 29. 

The last sentence declares, as clearly as any words could do, that, in 
the opinion of the author, no calcareous ingredient is necessary, either to 
constitute the character, or the value of marl. And though it may be ga- 
thered from other parts of this work, that what is called marl generally 
contains calcareous earth, yet no importance seems attached to that quality, 
any more than to the particular color of the earth, or any other accidental 
or immaterial appearance of some of the varieties described. 

The "shell marl" alluded to above, without explanation might be sup- 
posed to be similar to our beds of fossil shells, which are called marl. The 
two manures are very different in form, appearance, and value, though 
agreeing in both being calcareous. The manure called shell marl by the 
w6rk last quoted from, is described there with sufficient precision, and more 
fully in several parts of the Edinburgh Farmer's Magazine,* and in the Me- 
moirs of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society.f It is still more unlike 
marl, properly so called, than any of the substances described under that 
name, in the foregoing quotations. This manure is almost a pure calca- 
reous earth, being formed of the remains of small fresh-water shells de- 
posited on what were once the bottoms of lakes, but which have since be- 
come covered with bog or peat soil. If I may judge from our beds of mus- 
cle shells, (to which this manure seems to bear most resemblance,) much 
putrescent animal matter is combined with, and serves to give additional 
value to these bodies of shells. This kind of manure is sold in Scotland 
by the bushel, at such prices as show that it is very highly prized. It 
seems to be found but in few situations, and though called a kind of marl, 
is never meant when that term alone is used generally. 

A much older work than either of these referred to furnishes in part 
the definitions and even the words used above. This is the 'Systema Ag- 
riculture?, the Mystery of Husbandry discovered, published in 1687; and the 
author or compiler of that old work was probably indebted to others still 
older for his description of marl. For new books on agriculture, more 

* See Farmer's Register, vol. i., p. 90. 
t Vol. Hi. p. 206. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. |§3 

especially, have been most generally made by compiling and copying from 
older ones. 

" Marie is a very excellent thing, commended of all that either write or practise any 
thing in husbandry. There are several kinds of it, some stony, some soft, white, gray, 
russet, yellow, blew, black, and some red : It is of a cold nature and saddens land ex- 
ceedingly; and very heavy it is, and will go downward, though not so much as lime 
doth. The goodness or badness thereof is not known so much by the colour, as by the 
purity and uncompoundness of it; lor if it will break into bits like a dye, or smooth 
like lead-oar, without any composition of sand or gravel ; or if it will slake like slate- 
stones, and slake or shatter alter a shower ol rain, or being exposed to the sun or air, 
and shortly after turn to dust, when it's thoroughly dry again, and not congeal like tough 
clay, question not the fruitfulness of it, notwithstanding the difference of colours, which 
are no certain signs of the goodness of the marie. As for the slipperiness, viscousness, 
fattiness, or oyliness thereof, although it be commonly esteemed a sign of good marie, 
yet the best authors affirm the contrary — viz : that there is very good marie which is 
not so, but heth in the mine pure, dry and short, yet nevertheless if you water it, you 
will find it slippery. But the best and truest rule to know the richness and profit of 
your mark, is to try a load or two on your lands, in several places and in different 
proportions. 

" They usually lay the same on the small heaps, and disperse it over the whole field, as 
they do their dung ; and this marie will keep the land whereon it is laid, in some places 
ten or fifteen and in some places thirty years in heart : it is most profitable in dry, light, 
and barren lands, such as is most kind and natural foi rye, as is evident by Mr. Blithe's 
experiment in his chapter of marie. It also afrordeth not its vertue or strength the first 
year, so much as in the subsequent years. It yields a very great increase and advantage 
on high, sandy, gravelly, or mixed lands. Though never so barren, strong clay ground 
is unsuitable to it ; yet if it can be laid dry, marie may be profitable on that also.'' 

The author then proceeds to direct the mode of application more parti- 
cularly ; and if there were any doubt as to his total ignorance (or otherwise 
denial) of calcareous earth being necessary to the constitution of marl, 
that doubt would be removed by a subsequent sentence. 

"You shall observe, (saith Markham,) that if you cannot get dry, perfect, and rich 
marie, if then you can get of that earth which is called fuller's earth, (and where the 
one is not, commonly the other is,) then you may use it in the same manner as you 
should do marie, and it is found to be very near as profitable." 

Evelyn's Terra, or Philosophical Discourse of Earths, $c, delivered be- 
fore the Royal Society in 1675, has the following passage : 

" Of marie, (of a cold sad nature, a substance between clay and chalk,) seldom have 
we such quantities in layers as we have of forementioned earth ; but we commonly 
meet with it in places affected to it, and 'tis taken out of pits, at different depths, and of 
divers colours, red, white, gray, blue, all of them unctuous, and of a slippery nature, 
and differing in goodness ; for being pure and immixt, it sooner relents after a shower, 
and when dryed again, slackens, and crumbles into dust, without induration, and grow- 
ing hard a^ain. They are profitable for barren grounds, as abounding in nitre ; and 
sometimes there has been found in marie, delfs, a vitriolic wood, which will kindle like 
coal." 

The opinions expressed in the foregoing extracts, prove sufficiently that 
it was not the ignorant cultivators only, who either did not know of, or at- 
tached no importance to the calcareous ingredient in marl ; and it was im- 
possible that, from any number of such authors, an American reader could 
learn that either the object or the effect of marling was to render a soil 
more calcareous — or that our bodies of fossil shells resembled marl in cha- 
racter, or in operation as a manure. Of this, the following quotation will 
furnish striking proof— and the more so as the author refers frequently to 
the works of Anderson, and of Young, who treated of marl and of calca- 
reous manures, in a more scientific manner than had been usual. This 
author, Bordley, cannot be justly charged with inattention to the instruction 
to be gained from books ; for his greatest fault, as an agriculturist, is his 



184 



CALCAREOUS MANURES- APPENDIX. 



fondness for applying the practices of the most improved husbandry of 
England, to our lands and situations, however different and unsuitable — 
which he carried to an extent that is ridiculous as theory, and would be 
ruinous to the farmer who should so shape his general practice. 

8. " I farmed in a country [the Eastern Shore of Maryland] where habits are against a 
due attention to manures : but having read of the application of marl as a manure, I in- 
quired where there was any in the peninsula of the Chespeake in vain. My own farm 
had a grayish clay which to the eye was marl : but because it did not effervesce with 
acids, it was given up when it ought to have been tried on the land, especially as it ra- 
pidly crumbled and fell to mud, in water, with some appearance' of effervescence."— 
Bordley's Husbandry, 2ndcd., p. 55. 

That peninsula, through which Mr. Bordley in vain inquired for marl, has 
immense quantities of the fossil shells which we so improperly call by that 
name. But as his search was directed to marl as described by English 
authors— and not to calcareous earth simply — it is not to be wondered at 
that he should neither find the former substance, nor attach enough impor- 
tance to the latter, to induce the slightest remark on its probable use as 
manure. 

9. The Practical Treatise on Husbandry, among the directions for im- 
proving clay land, has what follows : 

" Sea sand and sea shells are used to great advantage as a manure, chiefly for cold ■•trong 
[i. e. clay] land, and loam inclining to clay. They separate the parts ; and the salts 
which are contained in them are a very great improvement to the land. Coral, and such 
kind ot stony plants which grow on the rocks, are filled with salts, which are very bene- 
ficial to land. But as these bodies are hard, the improvement is not the first or second 
year after they are laid on the ground, because thev require lime to pulverize them, 
before their salts can mix with the earth to impregnate it. The consequence of this is, 
that their manure is lasting. Sand, and the smaller kind of sea weeds, will enrich land 
for six or seven years ; and shells, coral, and other hard bodies, will continue many years 
longer. 

" In some countries/bssi'Z shells have been used with success as manure ; but they are 
not near so lull of salts, as those shells which aie taken from the sea shore ; and therefore 
the latter are always to be preferred. Sea sand is much used as manure in Cornwall. 
The best is that which is intimately mixed with coral." — p. 21. 

After stating the manner in which this "excellent manure" is taken up from 
the bottom, in barges, its character is thus continued: 

" It [i. e. the sea sand mixed with coral, as it may happen,] gives the heat of lime, and 
the fatness of oil, to the land it is laid upon. Being more solid than shells, it conveys a 
greater quantity of fermenting earth in equal space. Besides, it does not dissolve in the 
ground ne> soon as shells, but decaying more gradually, continues longer to impart its 
warmth to the juices of the earth." 

l^ere are described manures which are known to be calcareous, which 
are strongly recommended— but solely for their supposed mechanical effect 
in separating the parts of close clays, and en account of the salts derived 
from sea water, which they contain. Indeed, no allusion is made to any 
supposed value, or even to the presence of calcareous earth, which forms 
so large a proportion of these manures : and the fossil shells, (in which that 
ingredient is more abundant, more finely reduced, and consequently more 
fit for both immediate and durable effects,) are considered as less efficacious 
than solid sea shells— and inferior to sea sand. All these substances, be- 
sides whatever service their salts may render, are precisely the same kind 
of calcareous manure, as our beds of fossil shells furnish in a different 
form. Yet neither here nor elsewhere, does the author intimate that these 
manures and marl have similar powers for improving soils. 

The foregoing quotations show what opinions have been expressed by 
English writers of reputation— and what opinion would be formed by a 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. ]g5 

general reader of these and other agricultural works, of the nature of what 
is railed marl, in England, as well as what is so named in this part of our 
country. 1 do not mean that other authors have not thought more cor- 
rectly, and sometimes expressed themselves with precision on this subject. 
Mineralogists define marl to be a calcareous clay*— and in this correct 
sense, the term is used by Davy, and other chemical agriculturists. Such 
authors as Young and Sinclair also could not have been ignorant of the 
true composition of marl— yet even they have used so little precision or 
clearness,, when speaking of the effects of marling, that their statements, 
(however correct they may be in the sense they intended them,) convey no 
exact information, and have not served to remove the erroneous impres- 
sions made by the great body of their predecessors. Knowing as Young 
did [see first quotation] the confusion in which this subject was involved, 
it was the more incumbent on him to be guarded in his use of terms so 
generally misapplied. Yet considering his practical and scientific know- 
ledge as an agriculturist, his extensive personal observations, and the quan- 
tity of matter he has published on soils and calcareous manures, his omis- 
sions are more remarkable than those of any other writer. In such of his 
works as I have met with, though full of strong recommendations of marl- 
ing, in no case does he state the composition of the soil, (as respects its 
calcareous ingredient,) or the proportion added by the operation— and ge- 
nerally notices neither, as if he viewed marling just as most others have 
done. These charges are supported by the following extracts and re- 
ferences. 

10. Young's Farmer's Calendar, 10th London edition, page 40. — On 
marling. Through nearly four pages this practice is strongly recommended 
— but the manures spoken of, are regularly called " marl or clay," and 
their application, " marling or claying." Mr. Rodwell's account of his 
practice is inserted at length. On leased land he " clayed or marled" eight 
hundred and twenty acres with one hundred and forty thousand loads, and 
at a cost of four thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight pounds — and the 
business is stated to have been attended with great profit. At last, the 
author lets us know that it is not the same substance that he has been 
calling " inarl or clay" — and that the marl effervesces strongly with acids, 
and the clay slightly. But we are told nothing more precise as to the 
amount of calcareous ingredients, either in the manures, or the soil — and 
even if we were informed on those heads, (without which we can know little 
or nothing of what the operation really is,) we are left ignorant of how- 
much was clayed, and how much marled. It is to be inferred, however, 
that the clay was thought most serviceable, as Mr. Rodwell says — 

" Clay is much to be preferred to marl on those sandy soils, some, of which are loose, 
poor, and even a black sand." 

11. Young's Survey af Norfolk, (a large and closely printed octavo vo- 
lume,) has fourteen pages filled with a minute description of the soils of 
that county— but without any indication whatever of the proportion, pre- 
sence, or absence, of calcareous earth in that extensive district of sandy 
soils, so celebrated for their improvement by marling— nor in any other 
part of the county. The wastes are very extensive : one of them (page 
385) eighteen miles across, quite a desert of sand, "yet highly improveable." 
Of this also, no information is given as to its calcareous constitution. 

12. The section on marl (page 402, of the same work) gives concise 
statements of its application, with general notices of its effects, on near 

' Cleaveland'a Mineralogy. 



|gg CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

fifty different parishes, neighborhoods, or separate farms. Among all these, 
the only statements from which the calcareous nature of the manure may 
be gathered, are, (page 406,) of a marl that " ferments strongly with acids" 
— another, (page 409,) that marling at a particular place destroys sorrel — 
and (page 410) that the marl is generally calcareous, and that that contain- 
ing the most clay, and the least calcareous earth, is preferred by most per- 
sons, but not by all. 

1 3. Young's General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk, (an octavo of 432 
pages of close print,) in the description of soils, affords no information 
as to any of them being calcareous, or otherwise ; yet the author mentions 
(page 3) having analyzed some of the soils, and reports their aluminous 
and silicious ingredients. Nor can more be learned in this respect, in the 
long account afterwards given of the " marl" which has been very exten- 
sively applied also in the county of Suffolk. We may gather however, 
from the following extracts, that the " marl or clay" of Suffolk is generally 
calcareous, but that this quality is not considered the principal cause of its 
value ; and further, that crag, a much richer calcareous manure, (which 
seems to be the same with our richest beds of fossil shells, or marl,) is 
held to be injurious to the sandy soils, which are so generally improved by 
what is there called marl. 

" Claying — a term in Suffolk, which includes marling ; and indeed the earth car- 
ried under this term is very generally a clay marl ; though a pure, or nearly a pure clay, 
is preferred for very loose sands." — Young's Suffolk, p. 1S6. 

14. After speaking of the great value of this manure on light lands, he 
adds 

<»" But when the clay is not of a good sort, that is, when there is really none, or scarcely 
any clay in it, but is an imperfect and even a hard chalk, there are great doubts how far 
it answers and in some cases has been spread to little profit." — p. 187. 

15. " Part of the under stratum of the county is a singular body of cockle and other 
shells, found in great masses in various parts of the country, from Dunwich quite to the 
river Orwell, &c." — " I have seen pits of it to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, from 
which great quantities had been taken for the purpose of improving the heaths. It is 
both red and white, and the shells so broken as to resemble sand. On lands long in 
tillage, the use is discontinued, as it is found to make the sands blow more." [That is, to be 
moved by the winds.] — p. 5. 

15. The Essay on Manures, by Arthur Young, for which the author was 
honored with the Bedford medal, speaks distinctly enough of the value of 
marl being due to its calcareous ingredient, (as this author doubtless always 
knew, notwithstanding the looseness of most of his remarks on this head—) 
but at the same time he furnishes some of the strongest examples of absurd 
inferences, or of gross ignorance of the mode in which calcareous earth 
acts as an ingredient of soil, and the proportion which soils ought to 
contain. These are his statements, and his reasoning thereon: 

" It is extremely difficult to discover, from the knowledge at present possessed by the 
public, what ought to be the quantity of calcareous earth in a soil. The best specimen 
analyzed by Giobert had 6 per cent. ; by Bergman, 30 per cent. ; by Dr. Fordyce, 2 per 
cent.; a rich soil, quoted by Mr. Davy, in his lecture at the Royal Institution, 11 per 
cent. This is an inquiry, concerning which I have made many experiments, and on soils 
of the most extraordinary fertility. In one, the proportion was equal to 9 per cent; in 
another 20 per cent.; another, 3 per cent. ; and in a specimen of famous land, which I 
procured from Flanders, 17 per cent. But the circumstance which much perplexes the 
inquiry is, that many poor soils possess the same or nearly the same proportions as these 
most fertile ones. To attain the truth, in so important a point, induced me to repeat many 
trials, and to compare every circumstance ; and I am disposed to conclude, that the neces- 
sity of there being a large proportion of calcareous earth in a soil depends on the deficiency 
of organic [i. e. vegetable or animal]' matter ; of that organic matter which is [partly] 



CALCAREOUS MANUKES-APPENDIX. jy7 

convertible into hydrogen gas. If the farmer finds, by experiment, that his soil has but a 
small quantity of organic matter, or knows by his practice that it is poor, and not worth 
more than 10s., 15s. or 20s. an acre, he may then conclude that there ought to be 20 per 
cent, of calcareous earth in it ; but if, on the contrary, it abound with organic, maiter, and 
be worth in practice a much larger rent, in that case his marl cart will not be called for, 
though there be but five per cent, or even less, of calcareous matter." — Young's Essay on 
Manures — Sect. 2. 

It is scarcely necessary to show, that the opinion of calcareous matter 
being needed in larger quantities in proportion to the deficiency of pu- 
trescent matter, is directly opposed to the reasoning of this essay. If a 
poor soil were made to contain twenty per cent, of calcareous matter, by 
applying lime, chalk, or marl, the quantity and the expense would be so 
enormous as not to be justified by any possible return, and in truth, would 
lessen rather than increase the product of a poor soil. The fact named 
as strange by Young, that some rich soils contain very small, and others 
very large proportions of calcareous earth, is easily explained. If a natu- 
ral soil contains any excess of calcareous earth, even though but one per 
cent., it shows that there is that much to spare after having served every pur- 
pose of neutralizing acids and combining with putrescent matter. If there 
were twenty per cent, more of calcareous matter, it would be useless, 
until met by an additional supply of putrescent matter. Young's state- 
ment that some poor soils agree precisely with other rich soils, in their 
contents of calcareous earth, does not necessarily contradict my doctrine 
that a proper proportion of calcareous earth will enable any soil to become 
rich, either in a state of nature, or under mild cultivation, and for the fol- 
lowing reasons: 

16. 1st. The correctness of Young's analyses may be well doubted; 
and if he used the then usual process for separating calcareous earth, he 
was obliged to be incorrect on account of its unavoidable imperfection, as 
has been already explained at page 36. 2d. It cannot be known positively 
what was the original state of fertility of most cultivated soils in England, 
nor whether they were subjected to exhausting or improving cultivation, 
for centuries before our information from history begins. 3d. Lime has 
been there used for a long time, and to great extent ; and chalk and marl 
were applied as manures during the time of the Roman conquest, as stated 
by Pliny, (say 1700 years ago) so that it cannot be always known whether 
a soil has received its calcareous ingredient from nature, or the industry 
of man. 4th. It is known that severe cropping after liming, and also ex- 
cessive doses of calcareous earth, have rendered land almost barren ; of 
which the following extracts offer sufficient proof: — 

" Before 1778, [in East Lothian,] the out-field did not receive any dung except what was 
left by the animals grazed upon it. In many cases, out-field land was limed ; and often 
with singular advantage. The after management was uniformly bad ; it being customary 
to crop the limed out-field with barley and oats successively, so long as the crop was 
worth cutting. In this way numerous fields suffered so severely as to be rendered almost 
sterile for half a century afterwards." Farmer's Magazine, p. 53, vol. xii. 

" An overdose of shell marl, laid perhaps an inch thick, produces for a time large 
crops. But at last it renders the soil a caput mortuum, capable of neither corn nor 
grass ; of which, there are too many examples in Scotland, &c. Gentleman Far- 
mer, p. 378. 

17. Yet the last writer (Lord Kames) elsewhere states, (at page 379,) 
that as much clay marl as contains 1 500 bolls, (or 9000 bushels,) of pure 
calcareous earth to the acre, is not an overdose in Scotland. 

18. "Marl. Of this substance, there are four sorts, rock — slate — clay — and shell 
marl. The three former are of so heavy a nature that they are seldom conveyed to any 
distance ; though useful when found below a lighter soil. But shell marl is specifically 



]gg CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

lighter, and consists entirely of calcareous matter, (the broken and partially decayed 
shells offish,) which may be applied as a top-dressing to wheat and grass, when it would 
be less advantageous to use quick-lime." [This is the kind of manuie referred to in 
extract 5, and there more particularly described ] " In Lancashire and Cheshire, clay, 
or red marl, is the great source of fertilization, Stc." — " The quantity used is enormous ; 
in many cases about three hundred middling cart loads per acre, and the fields are some- 
times so thickly covered as to have the appearance of a red soiled fallow, fresh plough- 
ed." — Sinclair's Code of viniculture, American ed. (Hartford) p. 138. 

This account of the Lancashire improvements made by red clay marl 
closes with the statement that " the effects are represented to be beneficial 
in the highest degree," which is fully as exact an account of profit, or in- 
creased production, as we can obtain of any other marling. Throughout, 
there is no hint as to the calcareous constituents of the soil or the manure, 
or whether either rock, clay or slate marls, generally, are valuable for that 
or for other reasons ; nor indeed could we guess that they contained any 
calcareous earth, but for their being classed with many other substances, 
under the general head of calcareous manures. 

19. " The means of ameliorating the texture of chalky soils, are either by the applica- 
tion of clayey and sandy loams, pure clay, or marl." — "The chalk stratum sometimes 
lies upon a thick vein of black tenacious marl, of a rich quality, which ought to be dug 
up and mixed with the chalk." — Code of Agriculture, p. 19. 

20. Dickson's Farmer's Companion. — The author recommends " argil- 
laceous marl" for the improvement of chalky soils ; and for sandy soils, 
" where the calcareous principle is in sufficient abundance, argillaceous 
marl, and clayey loams," are recommended as manures. 

21. " Chalky loam. The best manure for this soil is clay, or argillaceous marl, if 
clay cannot be had ; because this soil is defective principally in the argillaceous ingredi- 
ent."— Kirwan on Manures, p SO. 

The evident intention and effect of the marling recommended in all the 
three last extracts, is to diminish the proportion of calcareous earth in the 
soil. 

22. In a Traveller's Notes of an agricultural tour in England, in 1811, 
which is published in the third volume of the Edinburgh Farmers' Maga- 
zine, the following passages relate to Mr. Coke's estate, Holkham, and to 
Norfolk generally. 

" Holkham. — The soil here is naturally very poor, being a mixture of sand, chalk, and 
flint stones, with apparently little mixture of argillaceous earth — the subsoil, chalk or 
limestone every where.''' Page 4S6. " As the soil of (he territory [of Norfolk generally] 
through which I passed, seems to have a sufficient mixture of calcareous earth naturally, I 
learn they do not often lime their lands ; bur clay marl has been found to have the most 
beneficial consequences on most of the Norfolk soils." p. 487. 

23. " In Norfolk, they seem to value clay more than marl, probably because their sandy 
soils already contain calcareous parts." — Kirwan on Manures, p. 87. 

From this and the preceding quotation it would follow, that the great and 
celebrated improvements in Norfolk, made by marling, had actually ope- 
rated to lessen the calcareous proportion of the soil, instead of increasing it. 
Or, (as may be deduced from what will follow,) if so scientific and dili- 
gent an inquirer as Kirwan was deceived on this very important point, it 
furnishes additional proof of the impossibility of drawing correct conclu- 
sions on this subject from European books— when it is left doubtful, whether 
the most extensive, the most profitable, and the most celebrated improve- 
ments by " marling" in Europe, have in fact served to make the soil more 
or less calcareous. 

Most of the extracts which I have presented, are from British agricul- 
turists of high character and authority. If such writers as these, while 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. J39 

giving long and (in some respects) minute statements of marl, and marl- 
ing, omit to tell, or leave their readers to doubt, whether tho manure or the 
soil is the most calcareous— or what proportions of calcareous earth, or 
whether any is present in either — then have I fully established that the 
American reader who may attempt to draw instruction from such sources, 
as to the operation, effects and profits of either marl or calcareous ma- 
nures in general, will be more apt to be deceived and misled than enlight- 
ened. 

1 have now to refer to an author, whose works, well known as they may 
be to others, had not come under my view until after the publication of 
most of the foregoing extracts. Otherwise, Marshall would have been 
stated as an exception to the general silence of British authors as to the 
true and precise nature of what they treated of as marl. But though he 
has not. been like others, so faulty as to leave in doubt what was the cha- 
racter and value of the marls of which he spoke, and the nature of their 
operation on the soils to which they weft applied, still no other writer 
furnishes stronger proof of the general ignorance and disregard of the 
nature of mails and calcareous manures, and of their mode of operation; 
and even the author himself is not free from the same charge as will be 
shown. I shall quote more at length from Marshall, because he presents 
the strongest opposition to what I have stated as to the general purport of 
publications on marling ; and also, because whatever may be their charac- 
ter, there is much to interest the reader in his accounts of the opinions and 
practices of those who have used calcareous manures longest and most 
extensively, although without knowing what they were doing. 

In his Rural Economy of Norfolk, the "marls" and " clays" most used 
in the celebrated improvements of that county are minutely described, 
and the chemical composition stated, showing that both are highly calca- 
reous. Of the " marls" or chalks, most used fo\- manure in Norfolk, he 
analyzed three specimens, and one of clay, and found the proportions of 
pure calcareous matter as follows: 
Chalk marl of Thorp-market, contained, per cent. - - - 85 

Soft chalk of Thorp-next-Norwich, 98 

Hard chalk of Swaffham, almost pure, — nearly - - - - 100 
Clay marl of Hemsby, 43 

24. Of these he spoke previously and in general terms, thus : 

" The central and northern parts of (he district abound, universally, with a whitish- 
colored chalk marl ; while the Fleg hundreds, and the eastern coast, are equally fortu- 
nate in a gray-colored clay marl. 

" The first has, in all probability, been in use as a manure many centuries ; there are 
oaks of considerable size now going to decay in pits which have obviously been hereto- 
fore in use, and which, perhaps, still remain in use. as marl-pits. 

" The use of clay marl, as a manure, seems to be a much later discovery : oven yet. 
there are farmers who are blind to its good effect ; because it is not marl, but " clay :" 
by which name it is universally known. 

"The name, however, would be a thing of no import, were it not indiscriminately 
applied to unctuous earths in general, whether they contain, or not, any portion of cal- 
careous matter. Nothing is " marl" which is not white ; tor, notwithstanding the county 
has been so long and so largely indebted toils fertilizing quality, her husbandmen, even 
in this enlightened age, remain totally ignorant of its distinguishing properties ; through 
which want of information much labor and expense is frequently thrown away. 

" One man, seeing the good effect of the Fleg clay, for instance, concludes that all 
clays are fertile, and finding a bed of strong brick earth upon his farm, falls to work, at 
a great expense, to " claying" — while another, observing this nun's miscarriage, con- 
cludes that all clays are unprofitable ; and, inconsequence, is at an expense, equally ill 
applied, of fetching " marl" from a great distance ; while he has, perhaps, in his own 
farm, if judiciously sought after, an earth of a quality equally fertilizing with that he is 
throwing away his time and his money in fetching. — MartkaU't Norfolk, vol. i., p. Ifi 

24 



190 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX 

Yet it is remarkable, that Marshall should not have intimated whether 
the Norfolk soils were naturally calcareous, (as the two writers just before 
quoted declare,) or not ; and therefore we are still left to guess whether 
these manures served to increase the calcareous quality of soils already 
possessing that quality in a high degree— or to give it to soils devoid of it 
before. 

Other passages will now be quoted from the same, and from other similar 
works of Marshall's, to show the prevailing ignorance of the ingredients, 
and operation of the marls sometimes prized, and sometimes contemned, 
with as little reason in the one case as the other, by farmers in various 
parts of England. 

25. " The principal part of his estate, however, is of a much shallower soil, not deeper 
than the plough goes ; and its present very amazing fertility he ascribes in a great mea- 
sure to his having ciayed it. Indeed to this species of improvement the fertility of the 
Fleg Hundred is allowed to be principally owing. 

" Mr. F. gave me an opportunity of examining his clay pit, which is very commodi- 
ous ; the uncallow is trifling, and the depth of the bed or jam he has not been able to 
ascertain. It is worked, at present, about ten or twelve feet deep. 

" The color of the fossil, when moist, is dark brown, interspersed with specks of white, 
and dries to a color lighter than that of fuller's earth ; on being exposed to the air, it 
breaks into small die-like pieces. 

" From Mr.F's. account of the manner of its acting, and more particularly from its 
appearance, I judged it to be a brown marl, rather than a clay ; and, on trying it in acid, 
it proves to be strongly calcareous ; effervescing, and hissing, more violently than most 
of the white marls of this neighborhood : and what is still more interesting, the Hemsby 
clay is equally turbulent in acid as the Norwich marl, which is brought by water forty 
miles into this country, at the excessive expense of four shillings a load upon the staith ; 
besides the land carriage. [The strength of this Hemsby clay is stated above.] 

" It is somewhat extraordinary that Mr. F., sensible and intelligent as he is, should be 
entirely unacquainted with this quality of his clay ; a circumstance, however, the less 
to be wondered at, as the Norfolk farmers, in general, are equally uninformed of the na- 
ture and properties of marl." — Marshall's Norfolk, vol. ii., page 192. 

The following is a remarkable instance, in a particular district, of a clay 
very poor in calcareous matter, being considered and used as valuable ma- 
nure, and a very rich marl equally accessible, being deemed inferior. 

26. " The marl is either an adulterate chalk, found near the foot of the chalky steeps 
of the West Downs, lying between the chalk rock and the Maam soil, partaking of 
them both — in truth, a marl of the first quality, or a sort of blue mud, or clay, dug out 
of the area of this district, particularly, I believe, on the south side of the river. This 
is said to have been set on with good effect ; while the former is spoken of, as of less 
value; whereas, the white is more than three-fourths of it calcareous-, while the blue 
does not contain ten grains, per cent., of calcareous matter." — Marshall's Southern Coun- 
ties, p. 175. 

The greater part of what are called marls in the following extract, and 
used as manure, contain so little calcareous earth, that whatever power 
they may exert, must be owing to some other ingredient. Yet, without 
Marshall's analysis, they would be considered to deserve the character of 
calcareous manures, as much as any others before named. 

27. " The red earth which has been set upon the lands of this district, in great abun- 
dance, as ' marl,'— is much of it in a manner destitute of calcareous matter ; and, of 
course, cannot, with propriety, be classed among marls. 

" Nevertheless, a red fossil is found, in some parts of the district, which contains a 
proportion of calcareous matter. 

"The marl of Croxall (in part of a stone-like, or slaty contexture, and of a light red 
color) is the richest in calcareosity ; one hundred grains of it afford thirty grains of cal- 
careous matter; and seventy grains of fine, impalpable, red-bark-like powder.* 



• This marl is singularly tenacious of its calcareous matter; dissolving remarkably 
slowly. One hundred grains, roughly pounded, was twenty-four hours in dissolving ; 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. jqj 

" And a marl of ElforJ (in color and contexture various, but resembling those of the 
Croxall marl) affords near twenty grains. 

" Yet the marl of Barton, on the opposite side of the Trent — though somewhat of a 
similar contexture, but of a darker more dusky color — is in a manner destitute of calca- 
reosity ! one hundred grains of it yielding little more than one grain — not two grains of 
calcareons matter. Neverthless, the pit, from which I took the specimens analyzed, is 
an immense excavation, out of which many thousand loads have been taken. 

" And the marls of this neighborhood (which mostly differ in appearance from those 
described, having generally that of a blood-red clay, interlayered, and sometimes inter- 
mingled with a white ejritty substance) are equally poor in calcareosity. 

One hundred grains of the marl of Stafford (which I believe may be taken as a fair 
specimen of the red clays of this quarferof the district) afford little more than two grains 
of calcareous matter.* Yet this is said to be ' famous marl ;' and from the pits which 
now appear, has been laid on in great abundance. 

"I do not mean to intimate, that these clays are altogether destitute of fertilizing 
properties, on their first application. It is not likely that fhe large pits which abound 
in almost every part of the district, and which must have been formed at a very great 
expense, should have been dug, without their contents being productive of some evi- 
dently, or at least apparently good effect, on the lands on which they have been spread. 

I confess, however, that this is but conjecture ; and it may be, that the good effect 
of fhe marls, first described being experienced, the fashion was set; and the distinguish- 
ing quality being unknown, or not attended to, marls and clays were indiscriminately 
used.'* — Marshall's Midland Counties, vol. i. p. 152. 

28. " On the southern banks of the Anker, is found a gray marl ; resembling in gene- 
ral appearance the marl of Norfolk, or rather the fuller's earth of Surrey. In contexture 
it is loose and friable. 

" This earth is singularly prodigal of its calcareosity. The acid being dropped on its 
surface, it flies into bubbles as the Norfolk marl. This circumstance, added to that of 
a striking improvement, which I was shown as being effected by this earth, led me to 
imagine that it was of a quality similar to the marls of Norfolk. 

'•But, from the results of two experiments — one of them made with granules formed 
by the weather, and collected on the site of improvement, the other with a specimen 
taken from the pit, it appears that one hundred grains of this earth contain no more than 
sic grains of calcareous matter! the residuum a cream colored saponaceous clay, with 
a small proportion of coarse sand." — Marshall's Midland Counties, vol. i. p. 155. 

The last extracts suggested a remark which ought to have been made 
earlier. When there is so much general ignorance prevailing among prac- 
tical farmers as to what they call marl, it cannot be expected that the most 
intelligent writers can be correct, when attempting to record their prac- 
tices. When Arthur Young, for example, reports the effects of marl in 
fifty different localities, as known from the practice of perhaps more than 
several hundred individuals, it must be inferred that he uses the term, 
generally, as they did from whom his information was gathered, and in 
very few cases, if at all, as learned by his own analyses. Therefore, it 
may well be doubted whether the uncertainty as to the character of marl 
does not extend very generally to even the most scientific writers on agri- 
culture. 

As the foregoing extract exhibits the use of " marls" destitute of calca- 
reous earth, so the following shows, under the name of sea sand, a manure 
which is in its chemical qualities a rich marl (in our sense) or calcareous 
manure. 

29. " Sea sand. This ha9 been a manure of the district, beyond memory or tradition. 
"There are two species still in use: the one bearing the ordinary appearances of 
sea sand, as found at the mouths of rivers; namely a compound of the common sand 
and mud; the other appears to the eye clean fragments of broken shells without mix- 
ture ; resembling in color and particles, clean-dressed bran of wheat. 



and another hundred, though pulverized to mere dust, continued to effervesce twelve 
hours; notwithstanding it was first saturated with water, and afterward shook repeat- 
edly. The Breedon stone, roughly pounded, dissolved in half the time ; notwithstanding 
its extreme hardness. 

* Lodged not in the substance of the clay, but in its natural cracks or fissurei. 



J 92 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

" By analysis, op.e hundred grains of the former contain about thirty grains of com- 
mon silicious sea sand, with a few grains of fine silt or mud ; the rest is calcareous earth 
mixed with the animal matter of marine shells. 

" One hundred grains of the latter contain eighty-five grains of the matter of shells, 
and fifteen grains of an earthy substance, which resembles iji color and particles, 
minute fragments of burnt clay or common red brick. 

" These sands are raised in difierent parts of Plymouth Sound, or in the harbor ; and 
are carried up the estuaries in barges ; and from these on horseback, perhaps five or six 
miles into the country ; of course at a very great expense, yet without discrimination, 
by men in general, as to their specific qualities. The shelly kind, no doubt brought 
them into repute, and induced landlords to bind their tenants to the use of them ; but 
without specifying the sort — and the bargemen, of course, bring such as they can raise 
and convey at'the least labor and expense. It is probable that the specimen first men- 
tioned, is above par, as to quality: I have seen sand ol a much cleaner appearance, 
travelling towards the fields of this quarter of t lie country ; and near Beddiford, in 
North Devonshire, I collected a specimen under the operation of " melling" with mould, 
which contains eighty grains per cent, of clean silicious sand !" — Marshall's West of 
England, vol. i., page 154. 

It might be inferred from all these proofs of Marshall's knowledge of 
calcareous earth constituting the real value of marls, that he could scarcely 
miss the evident corollary to that proposition, that the valuable operation 
of calcareous manures is to render soils more calcareous, and that the 
knowledge of the nature of the manure and the soil would sufficiently in- 
dicate when the application of the one to the other was judicious or not. 
But the following expression of opinion (Marshall's Yorkshire, vol. i., p. 
377) is not only strongly opposed to those deductions, but to the general 
purport of all his truths which I have before quoted. 

30. "Nothing at present but comparative experiments can determine the value of a 
given lime, to a given soil; and no man can with common prudence lime any land 
upon a lar^e scale, until a. moral certainty of improvement has been established by ex- 
* perience." 

If this be true, then indeed is there no true or known theory, or estab- 
lished precepts, for applying either lime or any calcareous manure. It 
amounts to saying, that every new application is a mere experiment, the 
result of which cannot even be conjectured from any facts previously known 
of other soils and other manures. 

31. The next quotation, which is from an editorial article in the Farmers'' 
Journal of July 38, 1823, shows that the old opinion still prevails, that 
marl is profitable only on sandy lands ; which opinion carries with it the 
inference that it is the argillaceous quality, rather than the calcareous that 
operates. The editor is remarking on a new agricultural compilation by a 
Mr. Elkinson, and ridiculing the author for his solemn annunciation of the 
truism, (in the editor's opinion,) that "marling on sand is more useful than 
on clay land." The reputation of Mr. Elkinson, says the editor 

" May remain undisturbed among the farmers ol Lincolnshire for a long time, who 
may never have chanced to meet with the old proverb, or have taken a journey into the 
sandy district of Norfolk. We really do not know whether it be as old as Jarvais Mark- 
ham or not : but we have seen the following lines in black letter ; 

He that marls sand, may buy land ; 

He that marls moss, shall have loss ; 

He that marls clay, throws all away! ' 

The editor then passes to a subject on which his admitted ignorance 
serves to prove that the improvement gained by marling could not be sim- 
ply the making a soil calcareous— for, upon that ground, when marl has 
once been plentifully given, and the land afterwards worked poor, there 
can be neither reason nor profit in a second marling. Yet, as if the mode 
of operation was altogether unknown, this passage follows: 



C ALC A REOU S M A N RES - APPEND I X. j <j 3 

" It was once asked ol (he editor by a very good practical Norfolk farmer, ' whether land 
which h;d been once marled and worn out would receive the same benefit from a second 
marling ?' It was answered, that an experiment made on one field, or on one acre, 
would decide the point, bul ledto nothi is olten been ob- 

served that loose land, alter having been marled anil out- cropped, deposited its mail in 
the subsoil, which therefore became more retentive [Of water;] and it has been sug- 
gested, that deep ploughing ought to be tried, to bring this marl again to the top. We 
hope that the point hen; in question has before now been settled by practice in both 
ways; though at the above period, (about 1806,) such Tacts had not readied the gentle- 
man alluded to, although a very intelligent man." 

The singular fact stated above, of marl, and also of lime, sinking and 
forming a layer below the soil, is stated by other British writers. No such 
result has been found in this country, so far as I am informed. Nor do I 
believe that it can occur, except when the calcareous matter is too abun- 
dant to form a chemical combination with the soil, or with the matters in 
the soil. According to my views of the manner in which calcareous earth 
acts, it must form such combination in the soil, to be useful— and if so 
combined, it cannot be separated, and sink through the soil by the force of 
gravity, or any other cause. 

32. The next article is piobably one of the latest publications on marl, 
yet contains as little of truth, and for its length, as much that is false and 
absurd, as if it had been written a century ago. It appeared (in English) 
in the Quarterhj Journal of Agriculture, (for Dec. 1834,) and is there 
quoted from the Magazine of Gardening and Botany, and as written by 
Count Gyllenborg. As no contradictory remarks are appended by either 
of the editors of these highly- respectable journals, it may be considered 
as in some measure giving their countenance to the opinions here pre- 
sented. 

Though the writer speaks of " acid in the land," yet the succeeding part 
of the sentence, which speaks of u imbibing it from stagnating water," shows 
that no correct or definite idea was attached to the term " acid." The 
entire piece is copied. 

" How far marl contributes to the fertility of soils, 1st. Not materially, for it is devoid 
of every unctuous and saline matter. 2d. But instru mentally it promotes vegetation, 
by attracting the moisture, acids or oils in the atmosphere, which enrich the land. As 
this quality becomes stronger by burning, how wisely would the farmers act in using it 
after being calcined. It promotes vegetation, by destroying the acid actually in the 
land, or removing that which it might be in danger of imbibing from stagnating water, 
and hence, also, it may perhaps help to prevent a too acid disposition in the seeds. By 
dissolving every unctuous substance in the land, whence arises a saponaceous mixture 
soluble in water, and fitted to enter into the pores of vegetables. By destroying the 
toughness of strong soils, for, by its quickly crumbling in the air, the cohesion of a 
clayey soil is diminished, it is rendered easier to cultivate, and more fit to carry on the 
growth of plants. It gives greater solidity and firmness to loose or sandy soils ; and, as 
before observed, it contributes to their fertility, by attracting into this dry soil the nutri- 
tive contents of the air. There are some who think that mar! should not be laid on 
sandy soils ; but experience has taught us to conclude otherwise, having observed that 
the most beneficial effects are produced from it on very light and sandy soils. Marl 
may hurt land by too long and a too plentiful use of it; tor, from its calcareous quality, 
it much resembles lime. It soon dissolves and consumes the fat of the land — and it 
loosens a clayey soil, so that it becomes less retentive of moisture. Marl is, however, 
very different, according to its being more or less calcareous or clayey ; and therefore 
judgment is more or less necessary to adapt it to the nature of the soil. Some have re- 
commended it chiefly for wet and cold soils, and many farmeis have observed that it is 
most useful when mixed with rich manures. Neither of these observations, however, 
seems to be correct ; but a due care should be taken that this manure be adapt' 'I to the 
soil on which it is laid." 



194 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

NOTE IV. 

DESCRIPTION AND ACCOUNT OP THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MARL, AND OF THE GYP- 
SEOUS EARTH, OF THE TIDE-WATER RECION OF VIRGINIA. 

Report to the State Board of Agriculture, by Edmund Ruffin, Member and 
Corresponding Secretary of the Board. 1 842. 

Within the last twenty-five years there have been produced from the ap- 
plication of calcareous manures more improvement and benefit, both agri- 
cultural and general, in lower Virginia, than from all other means and 
sources, numerous and valuable as have been the agricultural improve- 
ments made. And for the latter half of that time, no one agricultural sub- 
ject has been treated of more at length in the publications of this state. 
Still, there is much required to be known ; and it has very often, and not 
less so recently than formerly, been required of the writer, who has furnish- 
ed to the press the larger part of all that has thence proceeded on this sub- 
ject, to give answers to inquiries, which, however variously worded, amount- 
ed in substance to the question, " What is marl ?"— or " Is my marl, (or what- 
ever earth was so termed,) good marl, and likely to be profitable as manure !" 
It has therefore appeared to the writer that it would be useful to prepare 
something like a natural history or general and full description of the marls 
of lower Virginia ; and also of the kindred and yet very different mineral 
manure, the gypseous earth, or " green-sand" earth, concerning which latter 
so much error and delusion have been spread and long maintained, and 
so little of truth or useful information derived from the sources generally re- 
spected as the highest authority. 

The main difficulty in the treating of this subject is presented in the out- 
set in the very term " marl," which is altogether misapplied now in this 
country, though not so much as it has been and perhaps still is in England. 
Since this general course of misapplication was set forth by the writer at 
length in the ' Essay on Calcareous Manures,' there have become general 
in this country still other misapplications of this always misapplied term. 
For the " green-sand" earth of New Jersey, which before had been called 
" marl" by illiterate farmers only, has been since received under that name 
by chemists and the scientific reporters of geological surveys ; and thus 
confusion has become still " worse confounded." In the following pages, I 
shall be compelled, as heretofore, to yield in part to such misapplication of 
the term ; but at the expense of some otherwise useless repetition, and fre- 
quent explanation, shall hope to avoid misleading readers as to each of the 
particular earths under consideration. And, in general, I shall in no case 
apply the term marl to any but a calcareous earth, and of which the calca- 
reous ingredient or proportion of carbonate of lime is deemed sufficient to 
constitute the most important, if not indeed forming the only important or 
appreciable agent of fertilization ; and therefore I shall not so designate 
either the fine clays, (not calcareous, or very slightly so,) called marl in 
England, or the green-sand earths of New Jersey, Delaware or Virginia, 
when containing very little or no carbonate of lime. 

True marl, as correctly understood and described by mineralogists, is 
a fine calcareous clay, containing very little silicious sand, and none coarse, 
or separate; of firm texture— not plastic, or adhesive; does not bend 
under pressure, but breaks easily. It is manifest, from its laminated ap- 
pearance and fracture that this true marl has been originally suspended in ra- 
pidly flowing waters, and deposited at the bottom by subsidence, when the 
waters became comparatively still ; as when a rapid river, turbid with calca- 
reous clay, reached a lake. Thus, from its manner of formation, such marl, 
however argillaceous, was of a texture very different from the almost pure, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -APPENDIX 



195 



or the most tenacious clays. The carbonate of lime also tends to preserve an 
open and mellow texture in true marls, disposing the lumps to readily yield 
and crumble, or fall to powder or to thin flakes, under atmospherical influ- 
ences, which would only affect clay by making it an intractable sticky mortar 
when wet, or lumps of almost stony hardness when dry. Moreover, there 
seems good reason to believe that in true marl there is a chemical covibina- 
tion (and not merely a mixture) of the argillaceous and calcareous ingre- 
dients, induced by their suspension in water, when the particles of both 
were in the finest possible state of division, and most intimate intermixture, 
while so suspended. Besides the crumbling quality just stated, so different 
from clay, there is a still stronger reason for believing that the calcareous 
and the silicious parts of true marl are chemically combined, which is, that 
they cannot be separated by mechanical means, such as agitation and sub- 
sidence in water. For the suggestion that the different earthy parts of true 
marl are in a state of chemical combination with each other, I am indebted 
to the ■ Essai sur la Marne' of M. Puvis, which work, in an abridged form, 
I translated and published in the third volume of the Farmers' Register. 
The author there also states that the marls of France are principally, V not 
always, of fresh- water formation, as is shown by the shells they contain be- 
ing either such as belong to rivers and lakes or to the land. This is dif- 
ferent from any thing known in lower Virginia; all our known marls, whe- 
ther properly or improperly so termed, being deposites made in a former 
sea, and the shells being those of sea-animals.* 

But though it is proper to describe that which only is truly "marl," be- 
fore speaking of what is improperly so called, it is also true that there is 
nothing to tell of the use of any true marl in Virginia, and scarcely of its 
existence in the tide-water region. I have as yet seen it in but few places, 
and then overlying ordinary beds of fossil shells, and intermixed therewith. 
This marl was thus found in two of my diggings, one on Coggins Point 
farm and the other at Shellbanks. In both cases, though perfectly charac- 
terized, the quantity of true marl was too small to be used separately from 
the more calcareous and much thicker stratum of shell marl below. This 
true marl was in many horizontal layers, seldom more than an inch in thick- 
ness, separated by other layers, sometimes very thin, of almost pure shells 

* " It may be of some interest to scientific investigators to know more particularly the 
shells of these marls of France. In a catalogue annexed to the original ' Essai sur la 
Marne,' the author names the following shells; 

In a marl sent Horn St. Trivier — yellowish, compact, of homogeneous appearance, 
and coming to pieces finely and easily in water — 
Land shell — Turbo elegans. 
River shells — Helix fasicularis, Helix vivipara, fHelix tentacula, fMya Pictorum. 

In a marl from Cuiseaux, Saone et Loire — 
River shell — Melanopside (of Lamarck.) 

In a mail from Leugny, in Yonne — 
Land shell — fChassilie ridee (of Lamarck, and Draparnaud,) fHelix lubrica. 

In a marl from St. Priest in Dauphiny— earthy, yellowish, very easy to crumble in 
water — 
Land shell — fAmbrette alongee (of Lamarck and Draparnaud, *Helix hispida. 

In an analogous formation of marl, in the basin of the Rhone, beween Meximieux 
and Montluel, the Helix striee, a land species is found in great abundance." 

M. Puvis states that among these, and among: all the species of shells found in the 
marls of the basins of the three great rivers, Saone. Rhone and Yonne, there are no 
remains of sea shells. All seem to have been formed under fresh water. " But (he 
continues) as these marls contain land shells, often in great abundance, we must con- 
clude, that the revolution which heaped up the marls, has been preceded by a time in 
which the land was not covered by water, in which the earth producing vegetables, 
permitted the multiplication of the species of land shells which were found in these 
marls." — Essai sur la Marne, p. 8 to p. 24, pnd translation in Farmer's Register, in., 
note to p. 692. 

t Living species are still found in the same region similar to those marked thus. 



196 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 



broken very small, with some only of the very smallest entire. The pure 
argillaceous marl is blue (though sometimes of buff color,) firm and compact 
breaks easily, but does not bend however moist, and is cut smooth by a 
knife, leaving a surface like that of hard soap. This marl contained, in 
the argillaceous part, free from the shelly parts, only 10 per cent, of calca- 
reous matter. Several other specimens, from other localities in the same 
region, were about the same strength. Therefore, even if more plenty, 
there would seem to be no inducement to use our true marl, where the 
beds of fossil shells, called marl, and usually so much richer in calcareous 
matter, can be drawn from. But in Europe, clay marl is reported as rich 
as 40 to 60 per cent, of calcareous matter, and indeed richer, gradually 
running into lime-stone. In our lime-stone mountain region, (and especially 
in the places of ancient lakes and ponds, now drained or filled up, there 
probably may be found bodies of true or clay marl, comparing in strength 
as manure, and in abundance, with the valuable European deposites. 

But though it is proper to know, and to bear in mind, what is understood 
by the term marl by mineralogists, and by the well informed English and 
French agricultural writers, in regard to the extensive marlings in those 
countries, yet it is necessary in Virginia to conform generally to the usage 
which gives the name of marl to all earths mixed with fossil shells ; and as 
the term is so far improperly extended, I would carry it still farther, and 
make it embrace all natural calcareous earths not of stony hardness. This 
arrangement then would indeed include true marl, but merely as one class, 
and that one of the least noticeable for abundance or value of all in this 
country. The following scheme of classification will conform to this view, 
and serve to make more clear the descriptions that will follow. 

r 



f l ARGILLO- 
CALCAREOUS 
MARL. 
deposited in 
and from 
still water. 



MARL, or 

Shelly earth, 
or earth 
otherwise 
calcareous in 
part. 



(a. Yellow Mio- 
cene Mail. 



</«. Y ellow 
sandy marl. 



bb. 



II. SHELL 
MARL. 



(I. FRESH 

I WATER 
| SHELLS, 

grown in St 
I deposited 

at bottom of 
I lakes. 
< 



2. FOSSIL 
SHELLS, 
or Ancients 
Sea Shells 



f MIO- 

CENK 
MARL. 



Yellow 

ay in. ill. 



6. Riue Miocene 
Marl. 



cc. Blue sauuy 
marl. 



dd. Blut 

marl. 



clay 



fc 



EO- 
CENE 
[MARL. 



Calcareous 
Mail, with 
very little 
any Green- 
sand. 

d. Calcareous 
matter and 
green-sand, 
both consi- 
derable. 

e. Gypseous or 
Green-sand 
earth, with 
very little if 
any shelly or 
calcareous 
matter. 



if 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. ]y; 

Marl in this wide sense may then be first divided into the two following 
great classes : 

I. Fine argillo-calcareous earth, described above as " true marl," and which 
is not of itself shelly, even when in alternate layers with shells, and contains 
no separate silicious sand, or other coarse or heavy matters which could 
not remain, in a finely divided state, suspended in water flowing in 
but a moderate current. This marl, as stated above, is abundant and rich 
in some parts of Europe ; but so rare and inconsiderable in quantity in 
eastern Virginia, as to be scarcely worth naming for agricultural use. 

II. The second great division is shell-marl, which may be again divided 
into the two kinds, of 1, recent fresh-water shells, and 2, fossil or ancient 
sea-shells, left on and covered within what is now high land, up-heaved from 
the former bottom of the ocean, by ancient convulsions, or other great 
changes of the level of the earth's surface. 

1. The first of these kinds is common in some parts of Scotland, and is 
found also in Vermont and probably other parts of the northern states, 
but is not known to exist in Virginia. It is formed by the gradual accu- 
mulation of the shells of periwinkles or other small fresh-water shell-fish, 
at the bottoms of the small and shallow lakes in which the animals had lived. 
When the bottom had been raised by this accumulation, and by deposites 
from this and other sources, nearly to the level of the surface of the lake, wa- 
ter plants began to grow, and to form a new accumulation of vegetable and 
earthy deposites ; and finally the lake was thus changed to a peat-bog, wet 
and miry, but free from standing water. It is under the peat, and some- 
times at considerable depths, that this peculiar and very rich marl is found. 
It is said to be almost pure calcareous matter, and has been sold by the 
bushel, in great quantity for manure in Scotland. — (Edinburgh Farmers'' 
Magazine.*) 

2. The second is for us the only important division of shell marl, em- 
bracing all the immense body of fossil sea-shells which underlies nearly all 
of the tide-water or tertiary region of Virginia. This is also of two kinds 
designated by Professor Lyell, according to their geological age and forma- 
tion, as miocene and eocene ; and these have each the several agricultural 
varieties and sub-varieties named in the table above, and which will be 
hereafter described in order. 

As the terms "miocene" and "eocene" are now of universal acceptation 
among scientific writers, and are generally understood by agricultural 
readers on marl, and therefore are convenient for designating the very 
different descriptions of marls to which they have been applied, they will 
be here used. If the difference between these two kinds were merely 
geological, or in regard to comparative ages of formation, or to the respec- 
tive fossils of each, it would be useless to preserve it in writing on agricul- 
ture, however marked the difference, and however interesting, to the 
geologist. But there is also a difference of agricultural character and value 
in these two kinds of marl. In relation merely to each other, the terms 
eocene and miocene maybe sufficiently understood as the cider and newer 
formations. But it will not do as well to substitute the latter terms, because 
they are not correct generally, or in relation to other marls and geological 
formations. For there are some much older than the eocene, and others 

* In the Edinburgh Fanners' Magazine, vol. iv. p. 153, there is an interesting article 
(most of which was republished in the Farmers' Register, vol. i. p. 90,) describing a I 
body of this kind of shell marl, under Resteneth peatmoss, Forfar, Scol land. Most of 
the shells are of the water snail (helix jnrfris, Linmcus,) others are bivalves, (general!) 
tellina, animal tclln/s, Lin.) From this deposite, the proprietor had sold as much for 
manure as brought him £ 12,000 sterling, in the 12 years after its use had been begun. 

25 



198 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX, 



much more recently formed than the miocene. With neither of these is it 
necessary to encumber this article. 

The different periods of time of these two different deposites of shells 
were very remote from each other, and the latest of them was also very 
remote from the present time. In the miocene marl of Virginia, or later 
of the two, of the numerous species of shells found, there are but few kinds 
belonging to animals known or believed to be yet existing ; and in the 
eocene marl of Virginia there are almost none that now exist, and very 
few that belong also to the miocene marls. According to the highest geo- 
logical authority, the race of animals whose remains formed the latest of 
these deposites, were mostly extinct before the creation of man. 

Although it might be more conformable to regular or scientific arrange- 
ment to commence a general description with the older and lower deposite, 
the eocene marls, yet it will better suit the purpose of agricultural instruc- 
tion to reverse the order, by describing first the miocene marls, as the 
highest in the series and the first reached, and by very far the most- abun- 
dant and extensively accessible, and which therefore, though usually less 
powerful for fertilization, are much the most important to agriculture in 
Virginia in general. I shall therefore proceed first to treat of the miocene 
marls, which are the only kinds known in Virginia with the exceptions of 
the two comparatively small districts of eocene marl which will be hereaf- 
ter treated of in their order. 

MIOCENE MARLS. 

When my investigations and practical labors on this subject were com- 
menced, more than 24 years ago, the existence of marl of any kind had 
been noticed in lower Virginia at but a few places, where naturally exposed 
along steep river banks, and where cut through by deep ravines, and thus 
rendered conspicuous ; and the deposite was supposed to be very limited, 
by the few persons who had ever cast a thought upon the subject. But 
the attention and observation subsequently directed to the search, soon 
showed that the quantity was very far more extensive ; and now, though 
not generally near the surface of the earth, nor every where accessible, it 
seems probable that beds of fossil shells under-lie much the greater part of 
all the region between the falls of the rivers and the sea-shore. Except 
at or near the places where exposed on the surface, as above mentioned, 
the overlying earth is generally 20 or 30 and even sometimes 50 feet thick. 
All the marl-beds appear to be nearly horizontal, and of course are the 
most deeply covered under the highest lands, and are most easily accessi- 
ble in deep depressions. The deposite dips gently towards the east, so that 
it lies too deep to be visible near the sea-coast. At Norfolk, the marl has 
been recently reached, in boring deep for water, at 40 feet below that low 
surface. 

The marl is formed by the deposite and gradual accumulation of sea- 
shells, mostly left where the animals died ; and the vacancies between the 
shells were filled by the sand or clay, or mixtures of both, with fragments 
of older shells, brought by currents and deposited in what was then the 
sea. The remarkably perfect state of preservation of many very thin and 
always fragile shells, and still more the many pairs of bivalve shells that 
yet are found connected or in contact, prove that such shells could not have 
been transported, or even much agitated, by the force of the water. But 
other beds of marl, and also frequently the upper layers of such as have 
been just referred to, show as clearly the action of currents, or of water in 
violent and long continued motion, which served to grind down the shells 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



199 



to small fragments, arid which also left, in shaping the surface of the marl, 
the marks of whirl-pools or other violent disturbance. From such sup- 
posed causes might be expected such effects as many of the various marl- 
beds actually exhibit. In different places, and sometimes in the same 
place, the shells and their fragments are found of all sizes, and of all condi- 
tions of preservation ; and intermixed, in various proportions, with such 
clay, or fine sand, as might be suspended in or borne by currents ; so as to 
form beds of every degree of texture and shade of color. The shells, and 
their fragments, or the carbonate of lime, are in various proportions of quan- 
tity, from 10 per cent., (or even less in rare cases,) to 90 per cent, or more, 
of the mixture, or whole mass. In different beds, and sometimes in conti- 
guous layers of the same bed, the shells are in every state of preservation 
or of decay ; from that of being firm, and often entire in their calcareous 
structure, and the most delicate parts of their beautiful forms preserved, to 
that of being mostly broken down, and almost reduced to a coarse powder, 
and sometimes even forming a homogeneous mass of still finer particles 
in which the forms of but few if any shells are distinguishable. The ori- 
ginal bright and various colors of the shells are lost, and they are nearly 
all white — a few of the hardest only being brown or gray. The texture of 
the mass also varies, from a loose sand to a firm body of almost stony 
hardness. The earth intermixed with the shells is generally much more 
sandy than clayey, and more especially in the poorer marls. Even when 
the admixture of earth is clay, it rarely makes the marl appear the least 
clayey in texture, or plastic or adhesive, because the clay is but in small 
proportion to the shelly matter. The color of the miocene marls is also 
various— generally either pale yellow or dingy white or blue, sometimes 
bright, but more often a dull blue, or ash color. The richest marls, of 
homogeneous texture, are nearly white when dry, and approach in appear- 
ance to a coarse or impure chalk. There is no true chalk known to exist 
in this country. 

The shell marls of Virginia are confined almost entirely to the tide-water 
region, or the space eastward of the granite which forms the falls of all 
our eastern rivers. But near Petersburg (on the farm of Pr. William J. 
Dupuy, and other adjoining lands,) there is an exception to this general 
rule, the marl being found about a mile farther west, over-lapping the 
eastern part of the granite, and passing under a small stream which emp- 
ties into the Appomattox, a mile above the lowest falls. A thick stratum 
has also recently been found in Richmond, above the Penitentiary, and of 
course above the lower falls of James river. 

The only important fertilizing ingredient of the miocene marls is the 
carbonate of lime, or shelly matter. There may be, and probably is, some 
slight additional benefit sometimes, by accidental or peculiar admixtures 
of other substances ; as, of animal matter still remaining, or of vegetable 
extract in blue marls, of the oxide of iron, of a small proportion of green- 
sand generally, and even of the clay or the sand respectively for soils de- 
ficient in either. But either and all of these additional matters, though 
giving some value as manure, are of but little importance in miocene marls, 
in comparison to the main and great agent of fertilization, the shelly or 
calcareous matter. According then to the greater or less proportion of 
this main ingredient, and to its state of division or readiness to be reduced 
to a state of minute division in the soil, may be rated the comparative values 
of marls for manure. In regard to the much larger proportions of green- 
sand in miocene marls, as asserted by other authority, some additional re- 
marks will be hereafter submitted, in the proper order for consideration. 

As might be inferred from the obvious manner of the deposition of the 
marl, as before stated, by waters of the sea in violent and yet varying 



20Q CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

degrees of motion, the different horizontal layers of marl, successively de- 
posited in the same bed, and even within a few inches of perpendicular 
distance of each other, sometimes exhibit remarkable differences of ap- 
pearance, composition, and of value; while there is also generally as re- 
markable a uniformity of character of each particular layer, (though differ- 
ing much in thickness at different places) throughout not only the different 
diggings of the same place, but sometimes for miles in extent. I have 
seen often, in diggings on different farms, and several miles apart, layers of 
marl so precisely alike, and so marked in peculiar character, that there could 
be no doubt of their being parts of the same deposite, made at the same 
time, and by the same operating natural causes. Under such circumstances, 
a practised eye can by comparison fix very nearly the chemical com- 
position of similar varieties, and even more correctly, for general averages 
of value, than would be usually obtained from the accurate chemical analy- 
sis of one or two specimens For the usual danger of error is, not in the 
chemical analysis, (which is easy enough made, and the mode very cor- 
rect,) but in the selection of equal and fair specimens of marl to exhibit the 
average strength of the whole body excavated ; which requires much more 
experience and accuracy than are usually exercised by most operators, 
and still more in regard to proprietors who send specimens of their marls 
to be analyzed by other persons. It is highly important to the farmer to 
know the strength of the marl he is using. And to this end, it is neces- 
sary that every layer should be carefully analyzed, or what is better, 
a specimen from an equal and continuous shaving of the whole vertical section 
of a digging, so as to furnish a fair average of the whole body. But after 
this trouble is once taken, the general result will serve for all the future 
. diggings at the same place, and also for similar bodies more or less remote. 
The layers of marls formed by shells left "in place," or where the ani- 
mals died, are in general the poorest; and for this obvious reason, that all 
the hollows of and interstices between the shells are filled by what is most- 
ly earth, (but mixed with more or less of shelly fragments,) and that earth 
is principally silicious sand. Marl so formed, will not have more than 35 
to at most 40 per cent of calcareous matter, and more often only from 25 
to 35. The sand or earth that would be required to fill all the hollows and 
chinks of a body of entire shells, of ordinary form, though touching each 
other at their edges and points, would necessarily be as much as 65 to 75 
per cent, of the whole mass. And therefore, it is only because of, and in 
proportion to, the quantity of shelly particles mixed and borne along with 
the earth brought by currents and deposited among the whole shells, that 
such marl is sometimes richer than 25 to 35 per cent, in calcareous matter. 
The degree of admixture of shelly fragments in this filling earth, may be 
easily judged of by an experienced eye, and the proportion of shells and large 
fragments will depend much on the forms of the prevailing kinds of shells. 
It is easy to know the marls formed by shells left in their original place, 
by the state of the shells. Either the shells being whole, and especially the 
more fragile varieties, or the two sides of bivalve shells being found in 
close contact, as when the animal was living, will show clearly that the 
dead shells had not been agitated or borne along by currents. The beds 
or layers formed by removal are as easily known by the broken and finely 
reduced state of the shells. These marls are usually much the richest in 
calcareous matter ; for, by the grinding operation of the currents, and the 
difference of specific gravity in the particles carried along, the calcareous 
powder and clay are deposited together, with but little silicious sand. 
Among the richest marls are some having whole shells in their original places, 
but of which the interstices are filled by such fine calcareous and clayey 
earth as could have been deposited only in waters nearly still. Such are 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. ^01 

the rich marls in and about Williamsburg, and in Surry and that belt of 
country generally, containing 70 to SO per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

The different varieties of miocene marls which will now be more par- 
ticularly described are not always separated in different beds, but some- 
times form some of the different and eVen adjoining layers of the same 
bed or digging. The differences of color, &c, caused by the greater or 
less quantity of various accidental ingredients, however striking to the eye, 
are not often of much importance to the value of the marl; but only 
(or principally) such differences as are caused by the greater or less pro- 
portion of shelly matter, and its state of disintegration and division. 

(«) Yellow marl. — This kind, wherever (bund, always forms the highest 
layers of the particular body. That is, if there be layers both of yellow 
and blue marl in the same body, the yellow is always above and the blue 
below, and never in the reverse position. But sometimes the yellow con- 
tinues to the bottom, and sometimes the blue forms the top as well as the 
bottom. 

Yellow marl is usually found dry ; that is, having no springs or oozing 
waters, which are generally reached on digging lower in the body. But 
the lower part, where wet, is sometimes, though rarely, of the same yellow- 
ish or dingy white tint, so as to make it manifest that the color is not de- 
pendent on the degree of moisture or dryness. The yellowish tint is 
owing to the presence of oxide of iron, and is .pale or deep, approaching 
sometimes to reddish brown, according to the quantity of that coloring 
matter. 

Yellow sandy marl is the kind most abundant in Prince George county 
on and at some miles distance from the banks of James river, and from 
which some farms entirely, and others principally, in that neighborhood 
have been marled. It is of shells left in their original place, the filling 
earth being mostly of coarse sand, and the whole body poor in calcareous 
matter, varying in its proportion usually from 20 to 30 per cent, and rarely 
richer than 35 per cent. But it is of such open and loose texture, (and 
the more so as the sand is the more abundant,) that this marl is easily and 
cheaply worked, and the labor so applied is therefore often better compen- 
sated than in diggings of much richer marl. In this variety of marl, the 
shells are usually entire, or in large fragments, but are not firm or well 
preserved. In some beds, or thick layers, they are so finely reduced that 
the mass seems to the eye to be wholly, as it is indeed principally, a body 
of silicious sand. From one bed of this kind which its proprietor supposed 
from its appearance to be merely silicious, it was used as sand to mix in 
lime mortar for masonry, and it was found to serve well for that purpose. 
Subsequently this bed of sand was found to be enough calcareous to be 
used as manure; and was so used, and to such good profit, that the proprie- 
tor supposed it to be rich marl. In that opinion, however, he was mistaken, 
at least as to the calcareous contents. 

Yelloio clay marl.— But most of the richest as well as of the poorest 
miocene marls are yellowish. When rich, say containing proportions of 
carbonate of lime from 45 to 80 per cent., the marl is usually formed of 
shells broken down, when under the sea, to small fragments or to powder, 
by the grinding action of the water in violent motion, and left afterwards to 
settle in stiller water, according to the specific gravity. Or it is the same kind 
of rich and finely divided water-borne matter deposited on and filling the hol- 
lows in and between whole shells remaining in their original place. In either 
case, the small quantity of earth first suspended in the current, and then de- 
posited with the finely reduced shelly matter, is mostly if not entirely clay ; 
as silicious sand, having more specific weight, could not be suspended by 



202 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

the current so long, or carried so far, before being deposited. 1 he few rich 
clay marls of Prince George are of the first named variety, or composed 
entirely of fine fragments of shells intermixed with clay. The much richer 
marls in and about Williamsburg are of the other kind, there being also 
numerous whole shells in place, as well as the interstices being filled almost 
entirely by water-borne fragments, and fine powder of other shells. The 
other contents, making from 15 to 25 per cent, of the body, are principally 
of a very fine clay of pale yellow, and much less of silicious or white quartz 
sand, oxide of iron, and green-sand. Much of the same kind of rich marl 
is also in other parts of James City and York, in the lower part of Sur- 
ry, and in Isle of Wight, New Kent, and King William counties, which I 
have seen— and probably throughout the middle belt of the marl region 
of Virginia. There has been little or none of these rich clay marls seen 
by me in the upper range of marl counties, (those next the falls of the 
rivers,) and not much more near to the eastern limits, or next to where 
the marl dips so deeply, as to disappear from the surface and is accessible 
only by deep digging. Perhaps observations more extended, and more ac- 
curate than mine have been, might present different conclusions. 

The marls just described, when separated mechanically, (by the sieve 
and by carefully washing in water,) seem to consist, for the much greater 
part, of pure shelly matter, mostly in large or small fragments, slightly co- 
lored by brown oxide of iron, and the remainder of a very fine and ap- 
parently pure pale yellow clay. But this clay is also composed in part of 
finely divided carbonate of lime ; and the fine shelly matter is intermixed 
with some silicious sand and a little green-sand. The bed of marl near 
Surry Court House, (which is similar to the marl at most other places 
thereabout,) is of this kind and general character ; and from it, a large 
"body of land has been manured with great benefit. This body of marl was 
reputed to be among the richest in green-sand. From a much larger 
sample of the marl of this bed, carefully selected by the proprietor, at my 
request and for my examination, an average portion taken was compos- 
ed as follows : 

1780 grains, separated mechanically, by the sieve and by washing in 



Carbonate 


Fine argillaceous 


Silicious 


Green sand. 


of lime. 


earth. 


sand. 




1036 grains of shells and coarse frag- 








ments, nearly pure, and so counted, 1036 








433 grains fine shelly fragments, &c, 








which consisted of - - - 26S 


. 


120 


45 


277 grains fine yellow clay, &.c, 








which consisted of - 65 


212 






34 loss in the process. 









1780 1369 212 120 45 

Which may be stated of parts to the hundred thus: 

100 grains of marl contained of carbonate of lime, 77 grains 
Silicious or quartz sand, very pure and white. 6§ " 

Green-sand ------- - 2J " 

Fine yellow clay or argillaceous earth, (and the loss in the latter pro- 
cess,) --..... 13* " 

100 " 

The richest bodies of these marls show very few shells, or even frag- 
ments, and have a homogeneous texture and appearance to the eye, like 
a very impure chalk or sandy clay. Such marls are in James City, New 
Kent, King William and Middlesex counties. The following are some of 
them of which I have analyzed specimens : 



CALCAREOUS MANURES -APPENDIX. 20.'i 

From King William, (Lipscomb's land)— 82 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 
(Slaughter's land) -88 

" New Kent, (Col. Macon's land)— 88 " " " 

Middlesex, (Oaks' land) - ' 83 " " 

Some of very similar appearance, but still more approaching in texture 
to a very soft rock, from Lenoir county, N. C, and the bank of Neuse 
river, contained 75 per cent, of carbonate of lime. Sundry other speci- 
mens, of still more homogeneous and firm texture, from the banks of the 
Santee, S. C, contained about 95 per cent. Most of these marls are soft 
enough to be used for manure as dug from the pits; but the hardest lumps 
may need burning to lime. Any hard enough to need burning, and as 
rich as 85 per cent., will make good lime for cement, as well as for manure. 

Under a peculiar combination of circumstances, the great richness of 
some marls operates to lessen the value of the body as manure. Rain 
water, when just fallen, always contains some carbonic acid, which admix- 
ture causes it to be a solvent of carbonate of lime. When rain water then 
can descend by percolation into rich dry marl, in its passage it dissolves 
some of the calcareous matter, which is again left solid, and in crystals, by 
the slow evaporation of the fluid. These crystals of carbonate of lime are 
slowly added to by every recurrence of the like causes, until the cavities of 
large shells, and other openings into which the water had settled, are com- 
pletely filled with crystallization. If layers of marl, less pervious to water 
than in general, oppose the descent of the water, the crystallization forms 
in connected horizontal layers, separated by the thicker layers of softer 
marl. Such crystallized layers are found abundantly in the very rich marl 
at Yorktown, serving by their stony hardness to impair the otherwise great 
value of the manure. At Bellfield, Col. Robert McCandlish's farm, a few 
miles higher on York river, the hollows of large shells have been filled with 
beautiful and brilliant crystals thus formed. In Surry also, on the land of 
the late William Jones, such crystallization is abundant. For such effect to 
be produced, there are several conditions necessary. The superincumbent 
earth must be of open texture, and not very thick — or rain water could not 
pass through. It must not be a hill-side — as the water would flow off the 
surface and not penetrate to the marl. And the marl must be dry — or eva- 
poration could not take place, and of course not crystallization. 

Gloucester, though one of the outside marl counties to the east, is most 
abundantly supplied with marl, accessible on almost every farm, whether 
of high or of low grounds. It is generally of the poorer yellow kind. 
But three marked exceptions were seen, which as such deserve to be 
named. One is the rich clay marl forming the north bank of Ware river 
on the farm of Mr. Alexander Taliaferro. Another is the general sub-soil 
(as it may considered from its position) of the lowest land of the farm of 
Mr. Jefferson Sinclair, near the mouth of Severn river. This is an almost 
pure body of coarse shelly powder, or fragments, seldom found larger 
than two or three grains in weight, and a very few shells, of as minute size, 
entire enough to be distinguished. This mass of shelly matter is as loose 
and incohesive as coarse sand, yet is tinged slightly with green by the ad- 
mixture of greenish clay. A specimen analyzed contained 72 per cent, 
of carbonate of lime. (See more full account at page 181, vol. vi. Farmers' 
Register.) The third is the marl used by Capt. P. E. Tabb, and dug from 
beneath the low grounds on North river. It is a mass of pulverized shells, 
colored by red or brown oxide of iron.. 

(b) Blue marl. — This is the most common kind in the upper range, or 
near the western limits of the great marl deposite. Thereabouts, blue marl 
usually forms the whole thickness of the bed. More eastward, and lower 



204 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

down the country, it sometimes forms the whole of low-lying beds, but 
more usually only the lower layers of a bed, of which the upper part is 
yellow. 

Blue marl is generally such as remains "in place," or where the shells 
were left by the death of the enclosed animals, and the intermixed earth 
is mostly silicious sand ; and therefore, (and not because of its color,) this 
marl is rarely found as rich as 45 per cent., and is still more rarely equal to 
the yellow clay marls, though generally richer than the yellow sandy marls. 
Blue marl in the bed is always wet, being made so by water slowly 
oozing from every part, though seldom fast any where, or showing springs 
or veins of running water. The blue color is not caused by moisture, (for 
some yellow marls are also permanently wet,) but by vegetable extract, or 
other dark-colored putrescent matter, brought in the percolating water. 
This inference I have drawn from extensive observation of the natural 
beds, and also from several accurate though accidental experiments, of 
which the first that was observed will be here stated. A small stable 
yard was covered 6 to 1 inches thick with a rich dry yellow marl, for the 
purpose of retaining by chemical combination the juices of the putrescent 
manure which was to be thrown there from the stable. After remaining 
for this use a year or more, this flooring of marl was dug up and carried 
out for manure ; when it was found to be changed in color to a deep and 
vivid blue, and precisely like the natural color and appearance of the under- 
stratum of the same body of marl, which being an open and almost pure 
mass of pulverized (and water-borne) fragments of shells, was readily pene- 
trated by and always full of water. A general fact confirming this view 
is that all marls found lying immediately under swampy soils, full of vege- 
table matter, are blue. And this coloring vegetable matter in marl is not 
merely intermixed with, but must be held in chemical combination by the 
calcareous matter ; and serves, according to its quantity, in blue marls, as 
an an addition to the fertilizing power of the calcareous matter alone. The 
particular body of marl above referred to, the under-stratum of which is 
the most marked or vivid blue ever seen in marl, is at Shellbanks farm, 
Prince George, and from which I dug and applied a large quantity. The 
greater part, and all the richest layers seemed to be of shells broken down 
to a coarse powder, or of sizes less than fine gravel, through which clear 
water rose and passed so freely as to forbid digging to the bottom. The 
small quantity of clay or other earth intermixed with the calcareous earth 
of this marl is altogether insufficient to hold so much coloring matter ; and, 
moreover, if the coloring matter were not chemically combined with the 
calcareous, the continued free passage of water must have dissolved and 
washed off any uncombined vegetable extract. This whole body of marl, 
both the dry and yellow lying at top, as well as the blue and wet below, 
was all brought and deposited by currents, as is manifest by the different 
layers of different specific gravity, and still more by the many intervening 
layers of a fine calcareous clay, (before mentioned,) which may be consi- 
dered as the true marl of mineralogists, though in very smull quantity. Ana- 
lyses were carefully made of every different quality, and the results may be 
interesting as showing how much one layer may vary from the one next 
adjoining ; and different specimens not more than a few inches apart. 
Upper dry part, yellow, and loose as sand, varying (by unevenness of sur- 
face) from 3 to 7 feet, contained of carbonate of lime - 
Next layer below, brownish yellow, through which water 
passes, ------- 

About 12 inches lower, in the blue, ... 

" " " " " another specimen below 

Layers of clay marl, interspersed through the above 



53 


per 


cent. 


25 




<< 


64 




K 


69 




u 


9 




(I 



CALCAREOUS MANURES—APPENDIX. 205 

And in a subsequent digging the strength of four specimens of the blue part 
of the marl was as follows : 

In the first foot depth of blue under-stratum - 32 per cent. 

In the second foot - - - - - 33 " 

At :;.l feet ...... 76 

At 4 feet, and lowest digging then effected - - 70 " 

It may readily be inferred, from these various results, that if one or two 
specimens only had been analyzed, and these taken with no more care than 
is commonly used, that a very deceptious report might have been furnished 
from making even the most accurate analyses. 

Conchologists and geologists, who have treated so much of marls but 
merely in reference to the shells they furnish, or to their geological character, 
speak of the blue marl as formed by shells being imbedded in a blue day. 
But the earth is not generally a clay, nor any thing even approaching to a 
clay, but is mostly of silicious sand. The ordinary blue marl contains 
usually from three to four times as much pure silicious sand as of clay. 
From various specimens of two diggings in such marl, from which more 
than 300 acres were marled of the Coggins' Point farm, the following 
results were found by analysis : 

Yellow marl (wet) thin layer at top, contained of carbonate of lime 24 grains. 
Within 24 inches of top, shelly matter finely divided, and the mass uni- 
form dull blue color, 100 grains contained: 

Carbonate of lime, .... ... 34 grains. 

White silicious sand, 47 

Clay, black when moist, and dark gray when dried, - - 19 

100 
Like blue marl from another pit in the same body, 100 grains contained: 

Carbonate of lime, 34 grains. 

Silicious sand, 52 

Clay, 14 

100 
Of another specimen from the same, and of similar marl, 100 grains con- 
tained of carbonate of lime 29 

At 6 feet deep, (the shell not much reduced,) carbonate of lime 44 
At 13 feet deep, and one foot from bottom, 33 

Some few hard lumps of conglomerated shells and earths 
scattered through the general mass, 73 

From a digging at three-fourths of a mile distant, of marl of the same ap- 
pearance and believed to be the same body as the preceding, the general 
average of strength, as obtained from several trials at different depths, was 
in 1 00 grains of marl, 35 of carbonate of lime. The thickness of this 
body, where penetrated, varied from 11 to 14 feet; where there was a 
marked though not entire absence of shelly matter, and increase of silicious 
sand of the same blue tint. The deeper removal was stopped because 
of the obvious poverty, and no further examination of more than a foot or two 
in depth was made in this poor substratum. In but few of all the various 
diggings made by myself, or of others heard of, has the bottom of the marl 
been reached— though in many, and most generally when penetrated deeply 
enough, it becomes so poor as to be not worth the labor of removing. 
In the only known cases, when digging the marl for manure, that the bottom 
of the miocene was reached, the stratum below was of eocene green-sand 
earth, or eocene marl. In digging a well, at Shellbanks in Prince George 
county, my then residence, after passing through a bed of firm blue marl, 

2G . 



206 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



of broken (or water-worn) shells, obviously the same kind dug at another 
place for manure, and described at page 204, a soft brown sand was reached, 
apparently destitute of calcareous matter, and from which rose an abundant 
supply of pure and soft water to the height of 13 feet, which stood altoge- 
ther in this blue marl, without its purity being affected either by the cal- 
careous matter of the marl, or its coloring matter. The continued purity 
of this water is an additional proof that the blue coloring matter is chemi- 
cally combined with the carbonate of lime — and the combination is a 
visible illustration of the manner in which marl holds to and fixes putres- 
cent manures. 

Mr. William Carmichael, of Queen Ann's county, Maryland, an intelligent 
agriculturist and an experienced and observant marler, is of opinion that 
there is a perceptible superiority of effect of blue marls over others of 
equal (and even greater) strength in calcareous matter. (Farmers' Regis- 
ter, vol. vii. p. 106.) This superiority of effect must be caused by the 
vegetable or other putrescent and alimentary matter being combined with 
the calcareous, and by its presence giving color to the blue marl. And 
that the blue color is thus produced is fully proved by the facts stated at 
page 204, and by my more general observation. 

Excepting then the additional value in the vegetable extract which gives 
the color, there is no difference between the blue and the yellow marls, 
other than the difference, as of any marls of similar color, in their re- 
spective amounts of calcareous matter. And the same may be said of wet 
and dry marls, which are generally, but not always, distinguished by the 
above colors; and also of any other miocene marls, excepting for such 
proportion of "green-sand" as is sometimes present. But there is reason 
to believe that wet marls, in many cases, have lost some of their ancient 
■ strength, by the continued though very slow percolation and subsequent 
discharge of water through the mass, if recent rain water penetrates wet 
marl, it dissolves some carbonate of lime, (by means of the carbonic acid in 
the rain-water;) and, as the water slowly flows off, or oozes out, instead of 
being evaporated, the dissolved lime is washed into the nearest stream, and 
is lost, instead of being left, crystallized or otherwise, as in dry marl. 
Again — if water flows over having sulphate of iron (copperas) in solution, 
(which is not a very rare case,) that dissolved salt acts with the carbonate 
of Jime to produce the decomposition of both the sulphate of iron and the 
carbonate of lime, and from two of their component parts to form sulphate 
of lime. And as this is slightly soluble in water, it must be carried off by 
the slowly oozing water, as long as any of these new salts remain. In this 
case, the carbonic acid is evolved, and the iron is precipitated — and often 
fills, or coats the interior of the spaces before filled by the shells which this 
chemical process had decomposed and removed. This effect, when pro- 
duced, is seen at the upper part of the marl, where the copperas water first 
touches the shelly matter. In Henrico, near the western limit of the marl, 
there is generally over the present highest shells a body of earth of color 
and general appearance very similar to the marl below, and full of hollow 
impressions of shells, though no shelly nor even any calcareous matter now 
remains. In other marls, there is often seen an upper layer colored brown 
by this deposite of iron. Both these are different modes of the same ope- 
ration; the waters charged with sulphate of iron having in the latter case 
decomposed and removed but part, and in the former all the calcareous 
matter, to some depth below the former top of the stratum of marl. 
The marl, in the upper part of which the shells have been thus dissolved 
and removed, has a decided sulphureous odor, which is left very perceptible 
on the hands, after handling the marl as dug; and this odor is still more 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX 207 

manifest in the marl when it has been dug and thrown out, and exposed 
some days to the weather. Such marl is within a few miles of Richmond, 
at Dr. Chamberlayne's and Col. C. W. Gooch's farms. It is poor in calca- 
reous matter. 

The comparative values of marls are fixed by the comparative propor- 
tions of carbonate of lime contained, other circumstances being alike; yet 
if these circumstances are very different, they may make a marl containing 
but 25 per cent, worth more than another of 50 per cent. The more finely 
reduced, or the more rotten the shells, the quicker the action will be, and 
the more profitable the marling. Cut all the white shells, however hard and 
entire when applied, are dissolved in a few years, if the soil really needs so 
much lime — that is, (according to my views,) if there be acid of soil enough 
to combine with the lime. But the brown or slate-colored shells seem to 
be insoluble and almost indestructible, and do very little good as manure. 
These shells are the several species of scallop (pecten) and of fossil oyster, 
(oslrea,) and some few others, all fortunately being but in small proportion 
to the numerous white and softer shells. Some beds of marl, however, or 
layers, have mostly these hard shells, and therefore are worth very little 
compared to what their chemical analysis would indicate. 

A list of most of the shells found in the miocene marls, and also of the 
eocene of Virginia, (and of which specimens are in my collection,) will be 
annexed to this article, for which I am indebted to the scientific knowledge 
and kind assistance of Mr. M. Tuomey. But as the scientific names will 
be of but little use to many readers, it may be useful to describe in ad- 
vance a few of the most common shells, peculiar to the miocene marls, and 
which can scarcely be mistaken. Such are the various large scallop shells, 
(pecten,) oysters, (ostrea Virginica, <§-c.) — hollow tubes, about the thickness 
of a large pipe-stem, and open at both ends, (serpula,) and eliptical funnel- 
shaped shells having a small hole at the bottom, (Jissurella.) These refer- 
ences will be enough for any person acquainted with the shells by sight, but 
not acquainted with their scientific names. If however even very slightly 
informed in the latter respect, the observer will not need any such expla- 
nations. 

It is not necessary to speak otherwise than very concisely as to the 
practical applications and effects of miocene shell marl ; for this is the kind 
in general use throughout lower Virginia and Maryland and to such small 
extent as has been used in North Carolina, and therefore the operation is 
well known. All the usual and general and highly beneficial effects of 
marl known, with but few exceptions in the limited districts of eocene 
marl, (hereafter to be described,) are due to the miocene marls. And of 
such effects, there have been numerous statements, general and particular. 
The operation of the eocene marls, and especially those largely mixed 
with " green-sand," is different, and superior; but their use has been so 
limited, and so few statements of effects published, that nearly all the 
particular results and general statements of effects yet laid before the 
public, in the ' Essay on Calcareous Manures' or elsewhere, have been in 
relation to the miocene marls. 

EOCENE MARL. 

(c) — Calcareous marl, containing but little green-sand. — The existence 
in Virginia of the marl now known as eocene, was first discovered 
id 1819 by myself, in the south bank of James river, underlying the pro- 
montory of Coggins Point; and in the same year it was tried as ma- 
nure. The texture and general appearance of this marl were obvious- 



208 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

ly peculiar ; and its effects as manure were soon also observed to be 
in some measure different from those of the other marls, which I had then 
used, and which were all of the kind now distinguished as miocene. At 
that time these terms had not been introduced, and for perhaps fifteen 
years afterwards, I did not so much as hear of the terms " eocene" and 
" miocene ;" but their difference of age, appearance, and agricultural cha- 
racter were not therefore the less evident and obvious to my observation. 
The manifest difference of effects as manures was then ascribed by me 
to the general if not universal presence of a small proportion of sulphate 
of lime, or gypsum, in the eocene marl. The belief in the general presence 
of gypsum was very early induced by my seeing in a few places small 
crystals overlying and in contact with the surface of the bed of marl ; and 
also by the apparent results of such poor attempts as I subsequently made 
to ascertain the presence of this substance, by means of chemical tests. 
Upon such imperfect tests, and to the still more imperfect knowledge and 
skill which I could apply to the investigation, (amounting indeed to almost 
nothing,) very little reliance ought to have been placed. Nevertheless, I 
thence inferred that there was universally present and diffused through the 
body of this marl a small proportion of sulphate of lime, (say one or two 
parts in the hundred,) and subsequent agricultural practice has supplied 
the confirmation, which has not yet been sought for by the superior chemi- 
cal knowledge and skill of any other and late investigator. In the earliest 
publication of my views on calcareous manures in 1821, the gypseous 
character of this particular body of marl was affirmed, and the peculiar 
character of the results of the first experiments with it stated.* And in 
the edition of 1832 of the 'Essay on Calcareous Manures,' the general 
and full description of this marl was given precisely as it now stands 
in pages 92 and 93 of the latest edition. My still earlier discovery of and 
observations upon the peculiar character of the underlying bed of gypseous or 
"green-sand" earth, (which will be treated of subsequently,) led me to 
observe the peculiarities of the eocene marl, which being less distinctly 
marked, might otherwise have escaped my notice. 

As stated above, it was not from any knowledge of geological theories 
of successive formations, and different ages and periods, of all which 1 
was profoundly ignorant, that my opinion of the peculiar character of this 
marl was influenced. But judging solely from the more rotten and disinte- 
grated state of the shells, and their entire disappearance generally, even 
though their calcareous material remains — and from the total difference of 
kind of the few shells remaining whole, or of which the shape is distinctly 
marked, from any others of the many shells then known to me in any other 
marls, I very early formed the opinion that this bed was one of the re- 
mains or ruins of a condition of the earth much more ancient than that 
in which the ordinary marls had been formed. I remember having stated 
this opinion to one of the earliest of the several geologists who at different 
times visited my dwelling place and my marl excavations. This was the 
since notorious Mr. Featherstonhaugh, to whom I pointed out this curious 
and to me highly interesting deposite, and requested his attention to the 
more modern and very different (miocene) marl lying immediately upon 
and in close contact with the much more ancient formation below. This 
remarkable feature I also showed at a later time to Professor William B. 
Rogers, who was much struck with the fact, and attached so much impor- 

* American Farmer, vol. iii„ p. 317, and also the same experiments numbered 18, 19, 
20, of the present edition of ' Essay on Calcareous Manures.' 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 209 

tance to it, that he has referred to it in several of his subsequent publications. 

The most ready and certain mode of distinguishing eocene marl, is by 
reference to some of the shells belonging to this kind, and which are never 
found in miocene marls. There arc many such ; but the most common 
and well marked are the two following: 1st, the cardita planicosta, a 
bivalve white shell, having numerous regularly formed ridges running from 
the point at the hinge of the valves to the circumference of the outer or 
opening parts, and widening as the ridges extend — both valves alike, and 
having outlines approaching to circular— sometimes seen more than three 
inches across and the connected valves nearly two inches through, but 
generally of much smaller and various sizes. 2d. The ostrea selkeformis, 
or saddle oyster, a curiously and variously contorted brown and very 
hard bivalve shell, the larger valve of which approaches the shape and 
reversed curves of a saddle. This shell is sometimes found more than 
five inches in length. Both of these shells are abundant, especially the 
cardita planicosta, in this particular bed of eocene marl, and also in the 
upper part of all the other eocene marls since known elsewhere in Virgi- 
nia. Without reference to these, or to some other characteristic shells, 
the eocene marl might not always be distinguishable by its texture or 
general appearance from the miocene. And even these two shells, the 
most abundant and characteristic of the eocene formation generally, are 
neither to be found in the lower layers. 

For some years after the first discovery and application of this calcareous 
eocene marl on Coggins Point farm, it was not known to exist elsewhere. 
For even where then visible, and at later times used, its different character 
was neither known nor suspected by its proprietors. As chance furnished 
to me opportunities of seeing the beds, or as small specimens of the marl 
were sent to me for examination, I gradually came to know the greater ex- 
tent of this bed. It is now known at various points in an area of about 
twelve miles in length, from east to west, and eight or ten miles wide, which 
area takes in parts of the counties of Prince George, (which has much the 
larger portion,) Charles City, and the lower point of Chesterfield. And in 
this area also is the broad bed of James river, and the lower parts of its 
considerable tributaries, Appomattox river, and Bailey's, Powell's, and Her- 
ring creeks. The marl is exposed to view on the southern side of James river, 
at the following several points: Coggins Point, Maycox, (a mile below, and 
the most eastern exposure known,) Tarbay, Wm. H. Harrison's farm, and 
Beaver Castle, all above on the river— Eelbank and Hawksnest, (the most 
southern exposure,) on Powell's creek— the Old Court-house tract and Spring 
Garden farm, both on Bailey's creek, and the latter from one to two miles 
above the head of its tide, and three miles south of the Appomattox where 
opposite. The last is the most western exposure. On the northern side 
of the Appomattox, it is seen in the river bank at Bermuda Hundred, and 
north of James river, and of Herring creek, at Neston and Evelynton. 

Through nearly all this large area, this bed of marl preserves remark- 
able uniformity of appearance, texture, chemical character and composi- 
tion, and even of the thickness of the stratum, and of the succession and 
variations of character of the several smaller layers of the general body. 
The bed lies nearly horizontal, but dips slightly and irregularly eastward 
and northward. At Coggins Point, its lower part is 10 to 12 feet above 
high tide, while at Maycox, a mile to the east, and at Evelynton three miles 
north, it is lower than high tide mark. Yet not so much difference of ele- 
vation as this is seen in all the greater extension westward to Bermuda 
Hundred. The stratum varies from 4 feet to 10 feet thick, being thinnest 



210 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



at its south-western extremity, Spring Garden, and thickest at the north- 
eastern, Neston and Evelynton. Lt Coggins Point, where traced along the 
face of the river cliff continuously for more than half a mile, it is usually 
six feet thick, never more than eight, and never less than four feet, except 
where terminating. The general and almost uniform color is a pale 
dingy yellow. The few shells remaining are not perceptible without 
careful observation, and the whole mass, when dug down for use, is 
scarcely distinguishable from many common and barren sub-soils, or clay 
river cliffs, of like color. Two thin but continuous and separate layers of 
almost stony hardness extend through the whole bed. These contain from 
85 to 90 per cent, of carbonate of lime, and may be burnt to excellent 
quick-lime for cement. The marl intervening with these hard layers is simi- 
lar to them in color and general appearance ; but is quite soft and mellow 
in handling, and in that respect differs from all other known marls. The 
very uniform calcareous proportion of this part is about 53 per cent. ; and 
taking an equal section of the whole thickness of the bed, and with the 
greatest care to obtain a fair average sample, the strength in carbonate of 
lime was found to be 62 per cent. This is far less of calcareous matter than 
is contained by many miocene marls which show less effect than this as 
manure. But besides its calcareous matter, this eocene marl has some little 
gypsum, some kind of saline matter which cattle are fond of licking, (be- 
lieved to be sulphate of alumina,) and some amount of the granules of " green- 
sand" — and more of this than most of the miocene marls. The other 
earth of this marl is mostly of yellowish clay, and composed more of argil- 
laceous than silicious matter. I confess that all these additional ingredients, 
together, do not seem to me sufficient to account for the superiority which 
this marl exhibits as manure. 

Though this peculiar kind of marl was so early known, and its value 
appreciated, and, though it underlies the whole of Coggins Point, yet it is 
covered there so deeply by the overlying earth, and is therefore so difficult 
to work extensively, and, moreover, is so distant from the main body of 
the farm, that this has not been applied to more than 65 acres, out of 
some 700 marled on that farm. Other proprietors have elsewhere made 
much more extensive applications of this marl. The peculiar effects of this 
kind of marl were tested with the most accuracy by Messrs. Collier H. Minge, 
then of Walnut Hill, and Hill Carter, of Shirley; both of whom used this 
marl from Coggins Point, water-borne to distances of 12 and 15 miles. 
Though the marl was given to them, (in the bed.) it was yet very costly in 
the labor of digging and transportation ; and therefore they used it with 
strict economy, and carefully estimated the results. But highly as they 
both thought of, and have reported the effects,* in comparison with either 
lime or miocene marls, the expense and trouble were so great, that it is 
now considered by the most judicious farmers on the tide water rivers, that 
they can better afford to buy stone-lime, at its present low price, (8 to 10 
cents the bushel,) than to transport marl of any kind by water 

Since the foregoing pages were written, I have learned of two farther 
exposures of this body of eocene marl. One is four miles north of Eve- 
lynton, (in Charles City county,) where the marl was reached and pene- 
trated by the digging of a well in 1814. At about 30 feet deep, after 
passing through the marl, and a layer of rock, water was reached, which 
rose to the top of the well, and continues to flow over, forming the only 
Artesian well known in this region. The other locality is in Henrico 
county, on Turkey Island creek, its eastern boundary, and about 8 miles 

* See Farmers' Register, vol. v., pp. 1S9. 217, 511. 



( VLCARE01 M INUBES VPPENDIX. i j 

north of City Point This marj 1 recognized tu be the same, by a specimen 
'recently brought me for examination. It is below the surface ui' swampy 
ground, and is colored dark gray. It is much fuller of green-sand, and 
indeed in that respect makes some approach to the green-sand marls of the 
Pamunkey, of which the nearest exposure is only 16 miles from this place. 
It is probable that the marl extends continuously from the one place to the 
other, and may be found throughout the interval by deep digging. 

(e) THE GYPSEOUS EARTH OR GREEN EARTH OF JAMES RIVER. 

Before proceeding to consider the next and only remaining known 
variety of our marls, the eocene green-sand marl, it is necessary to treat in 
advance and separately of the peculiar earthy compound, called "green- 
sand" by geological writers, of which the large admixture, and sometimes 
even larger proportion, gives additional value and peculiar character and 
action to the greater number and quantity of the eocene marls yet known. 
But important and valuable as may be the green-sand in itself, and neces- 
sary to be considered in connexion with the subject of eocene marl, with 
which it is so inseparably connected, I wish especially to avoid confounding 
the two earths under one name or one character ; and to be understood as 
protesting against the prevalent error, in giving currency to which scientific 
writers have concurred with the unlearned cultivators, of applying to the 
non-calcareous green-sand earth the name of "marl," and thus adding ano- 
ther, and the most important one, to the previous misapplications of this 
wonderfully misused and misunderstood term. This misapplication is uni- 
versal in New Jersey, where the green-sand earth is most abundant, and is 
generally very rich in its distinguishing ingredient, (usually containing 75 
to 90 per cent, of pure green-sand—) and where this earth has been long, 
and is now extensively used as a manure, and has been found to be of 
great value as a fertilizer. 1 shall hereafter refer to both the points of re- 
semblance and of difference (both of which are important and interesting) 
between this green earth of New Jersey and that of James river ; but, for 
the present, my remarks will be confined to the latter, and its use as ma- 
nure, as known principally, and indeed almost entirely, from my own 
observations and practical experience, there having as yet been but few 
trials of it made by other persons. 

It was mentioned in the foregoing section, that the first notice or obser- 
vation of the eocene marl on James river was induced by the previous 
discovery and examination of the green or gypseous earth -the latter 
being the universal underlying bed of the former, and connected with it in 
more respects than merely its subjacent position. It was my chance, or 
the result of habits of observation of marls and other earths, and not of 
any scientific knowledge or previous preparation for such investigations, 
which led me, in 1817, to be the first to observe this bed of green earth in 
the river banks of Evergreen and Coggins Point, and to trace it where 
visible along the intermediate ground, a distance of about eight miles. 
Since then, it is known to be much more extended ; for it not only under- 
lies all the eocene marl of the same neighborhood, wherever that is found, 
and part of the yellow sandy miocene, but also extends beyond, and is 
found at various places where no eocene or even miocene marl is found. 
The most western limit, seen after a long interval or concealed existence 
of this formation, is at Petersburg, where it shows in the ravines south of 
Poplar Lawn. 

What first directed my attention to this earth was the existence in the 



2J2 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

river bank at Evergreen, (the place of my birth, and of residence in early- 
life,) of curiously shaped and beautiful crystals, which subsequently I learned 
were selenite or gypsum. The like crystals, though much smaller in size, 
I soon after found in different places at Coggins Point, my own farm and 
then residence. And, in making examinations for this purpose, I observed 
that wherever any gypsum could be found, it was always in a peculiar 
kind of earth, which, though varying much in appearance in different places 
and at different elevations at the same place, yet possessed characteristic 
marks by which it could be easily distinguished from all others. This 
was the earth in question. For want of any known or more appropriate 
name, I at first applied the term " gypseous earth" to this deposite; and 
though I subsequently abandoned this name in (undeserved) deference 
to scientific authority, and have used instead, in my later publications, the 
name " green-sand earth," I now believe that my original term (in refer- 
ence to the more general and universal manuring qualities) was the better 
of the two, for reasons which will appear in the course of these remarks. 
And besides that " green-sand earth" is inconvenient for its length, it is not 
truly descriptive ; for the entire granules from which the peculiar character 
of the earth is derived, are not green, but black superficially, or so appear; 
and are not what is usually understood as sand, but in texture are like 
fine and unctuous clay. Still worse is it to term the whole mass, " green- 
sand," as is usually done, when the pure " green-sand," even if that were 
properly named, may not form one fourth or even one tenth of the whole 
mass of earth. I therefore would prefer for the deposite, and shall use in- 
differently, either my first designation of gypseous earth, or the name of 
green earth, which latter is convenient, is sufficiently descriptive, and 
moreover affirms nothing except as to the color, which is generally manifest 
in the whole mass, and, if not, is certainly so in the separated and mashed 
granules, which distinguish the earth. 

As the lower part of the river bank is mostly exposed and kept bare by 
the frequent washing by the waves driven by strong winds and high tides, 
the bed of gypseous earth can be easily traced through nearly its whole 
course along the river side. As thus exposed to view, it has generally a 
green color, most frequently intermixed and mottled with smaller streaks 
and spots of bright yellow. The earth, as seen firm in the bank, and with 
a smooth washed surface, might be supposed to be somewhat of a clay; 
but, on handling it, and breaking down a lump, its texture is more like 
sand, as indeed a large proportion of the mass is silicious sand. A very 
general distinguishing mark of this earth is its containing numerous hollow 
impressions of eocene shells, of which the forms remain perfect, though 
neither the shells themselves nor any portion of their calcareous substance 
remain, as the earth in this part, and where most generally seen, contains 
not a particle of carbonate of lime. Among the yellow spots there are also 
other small spots and streaks of reddish brown colored clay, very pure, soft 
and unctuous to the touch. The bright yellow clay is doubtless largely 
impregnated with iron, or is a true yellow ochre. Though soft within the 
bed, this yellow ochre hardens when exposed to the air on the outside, and 
even when under water. Many of the yellow spots made by this ochre, 
as seen on the surface of a smooth section of the bed, have a rough resem- 
blance to the shape of sections of bivalve shells ; and these contrasted with 
the general green ground, and, with the exception of the colors being dif- 
ferent, give to such a section of the bank somewhat the appearance of the 
beautiful black marbles used sometimes for mantel-pieces, in which the white 
traces of what were formerly shells show throughout. In some places near 
to and below the beach, the earth is seen much darker colored, indeed is 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 213 

almost black when moist in the bank, though more of dark green when 
dry. This deeper color is owing to the green granules being present in 
larger quantity; and generally, if not always, the lower part of the bed of 
earth is richer in that ingredient than the upper. The empty impressions 
which were formerly filled by shells are still found in penetrating below ; 
but as the depth increases, first are seen some fragments, and then whole 
shells, though greatly decayed, and the parts having scarcely any coherence. 
Still, generally, even below, where these shells are most abundant, their 
quantity would not furnish as much as two per cent., and generally not one 
per cent., to the whole thickness of the bed ; and therefore the»carbonate 
of lime, though of course useful in proportion to its quantity, can give no 
appreciable addition of value to the mass as manure. 

Here and there, but rarely, in the upper and dry part of this bed, crystals 
of gypsum are found, generally so small as to be barely distinguishable 
by the eye. In the lower and wet part, gypsum is never visible ; but it 
is nevertheless believed to be always present in some proportion. 

But the important and most characteristic mark of the green earth is 
present in the black granules called " green-sand," which give color to the 
mass. To ascertain the presence of these granules, let a small sample of 
the earth or marl supposed to contain them be dried, and then crumbled 
between the fingers, or, if too hard for that, by being rubbed in a mortar, 
not too finely and closely. Then take a pinch of the powder between the 
thumb and finger, and sprinkle it very thinly over a piece of white paper. 
If any of the separated grains appear black, (or green,) mash one of them 
with the moistened point of a pen-knife ; and if it be "green-sand," the 
granule will mash like fine soapy clay, and make a vivid green smear. 

For greater accuracy, let the earth (or marl) be well washed by agitation 
in water, and pour oft" the pure clay and other lighter matters which will 
remain longer suspended in the fluid. The grains of green-sand will then 
be left with nothing else but the quartz or silicious sand, and moreover the 
former will be made more perceptible, in consequence of being cleared by 
the washing of any previous covering of fine clay. 

My first published account of this earth was made in or about the 
year 1828, in the old series of the 'American Farmer*' A much 
more extended article "On the Gypseous Earth of James River," I 
afterwards published, July, 1833, in the first volume of the Farmers' Re- 
gister, beginning at page 207. Though up to that time I had never so 
much as heard of the term "green-sand," and though 1 adopted and used 
the new and unauthorized designation of "gypseous earth," the earth in 
question was described so minutely and accurately that it was impossible 
for any intelligent and attentive reader of the article, and subsequent ob- 
server of the kind of earth in question, to mistake the subject of descrip- 
tion. I trust that I may be pardoned for thus specifying my claim to the 
first discovery of this earth in Virginia, inasmuch as that merit (if it be 
one) would be ascribed by every otherwise uninformed reader of the first 
report of the geological survey of Virginia, and some other of the publica- 
tions from the same source, to the author of these pieces. Upon this 
occasion, it would be improper to say more on tins question than thus con- 
cisely and explicitly to assert my just rights. 

Before proceeding to offer the more precise and more valuable informa- 
tion concerning this earth obtained by very recent investigations, it will be 
proper to state something of the progress and changes of opinion on this 
subject, which operated at different times either to encourage or to obstruct 
the use of this earth as manure. 

From 1818 to 1835 inclusive, I made numerous trials, and in some cases 

27 



214 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

extensive applications of the Coggins Point gypseous earth as manure. 
The results of my general practice, and also of many particular experi- 
ments noted at the times when made, were reported in a communication 
to the Farmers' Register, commencing at page 118, vol. ix. The effects 
stated were very different and apparently contradictory — sometimes bene- 
ficial and profitable in a remarkable degree, but more generally of little 
value, or of no benefit whatever. The inferences which I drew from all 
my experience, (and there existed scarcely any other facts or experiments,) 
were that this earth as manure acted in the same manner as gypsum, 
though m<fre powerfully— and in no other manner than as gypsum would 
under like circumstances ; that like gypsum, on my land certainly, and as 
I inferred in our tide-water region generally, this earth had no effect what- 
ever (unless used in excessive quantity) on any acid soils -and rarely on 
any other crop than clover, even when properly applied on neutral or 
calcareous soils ; and that when naturally acid soils were made calcareous 
by being marled, this green earth then became generally operative thereon 
as a manure for clover, (and for other plants of the clover or pea tribe,) 
in the same manner as is usual in regard to gypsum.* And though the 
effects, when any were produced, were greater than those of any usual or 
known dressings of gypsum, and sometimes in a very remarkable degree, 
still the failures and disappointments were so many that I did not deem the 
practice worth being continued. In 1841, my son, the present occupant of 
the Coggins Point farm, at my request, recommenced the applications of 
gypseous earth, for experiment; and on the clover of this year, 1842, he 
has extended the dressings over more than 60 acres, f The results were, 
as in former years, very unequal, and for the greater space of ground 
covered, unprofitable, and barely if at all perceptible. But on 25 to 30 
acres the benefit was romarkably great, and in some cases (of summer dress- 
ings) improvement was obvious within ten days after the application. But 
what was most interesting in the results was, that a clue seemed to be there- 
by furnished to explain the frequent previous failures of this manure, even 
when applied to clover growing on neutral or calcareous soil, which are 
the only circumstances in which it has ever been found profitable in practice. 
My former applications had been generally made from the upper and 
greener stratum of the gypseous earth, (designated in a succeeding page 
as C) or if from the lower and blacker part, (D,) the digging did not pene- 
trate more than a foot, or, at most and rarely, two feet below the before 
exposed outer surface. But in the recent larger operation, the digging 
(made on the river beach) was so much more extensive as to furnish earth 
from depths of three or four feet, as well as of portions nearer to and at 
the surface. I ascribed the remarkable differences of effect to the kind 
and place of the earth ; inferring that the exposed parts, and all perhaps 
near the surface, had, by exposure to air or water, lost a large proportion 
of the soluble or decomposable fertilizing ingredients. As the applications 
had not been made with any view to this question, the experiments are 
not to be deemed as conclusive, and the correctness of this inference is yet to 
be fairly tested by future experiments. But the benefits from some of the 
dressings, and all of those supposed to be from the deeper digging, were 
so great, and so speedily produced, that renewed and strong interest was 

• See these views more fully set forth in the article above referred to, and also in an- 
other on the green -sand marls of Pamunkey, at pp. 679 and 690, vol. viii. Farmers' 
Register. 

t See the facts and results stated in two communications to Farmers' Register pp. 86, 
136 and 252, vol. x. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



215 



excited in regard to this manure. The quantity applied was generally 40 
bushels of the earth to the acre. And this quantity seemed, (from an accu- 
rate comparative experiment) to produce as much benefit as 200 bushels. 
The growth of clover was increased in degrees varying from 100 to 300 
per cent. And where the application was most successful, the increase and 
profit were sufficient to compensate the expense, even though no further 
benefit shall be found than in this one crop— or that a new application shall 
be required and be made for every succeeding crop of clover, or once in 
each round of the rotation of crops. 

An observation made by accident last spring led to further chemical as 
well as other examinations of this earth, and to important results. Upon 
heating a lump of it to red heat, I found that strong fumes were thereby 
extricated, which were almost suffocating if inhaled incautiously. The 
odor was manifestly sulphureous in part, and principally ; but it seemed 
not altogether so, but to be mixed with some other, much like that of mu- 
riatic acid gas. Similar trials were made on many specimens, and all the 
darker and (as supposed) richer layers of the green earth at Coggins Point 
showed the like result. From specimens of the upper and lighter green 
stratum (C) when heated red, there was nothing of this suffocating odor 
produced. And it may be useful to state here, in anticipation of subjects to 
be hereafter more full}'' considered, that I subsequently found that the New 
Jersey green-sand earths yielded not a particle of this gaseous product. 

This odor, so far as it was sulphureous, was obviously the product of 
the decomposition (by red heat)of sulphuret of iron — which was thus proved 
to be universally diffused, though invisible, through all the darker and bet- 
ter kinds of this earth. Sulphur would have shown like results, with a 
much less degree of heat ; but it could not be that, because the heat suffi- 
cient to decompose sulphur (and to evolve its fumes) had no effect on the 
earth. I also observed that lumps of the earth after having been applied as 
manure, and exposed on the surface of the ground for some months, often 
had a smell of sulphur; and, in some cases, the same effect was exhibited 
in specimens taken from the diggings, and kept dry. The sulphuret of 
iron, if universally present, would, by its decomposition in contact with 
carbonate of lime, (as when on calcareous land,) form sulphate of lime, 
(gypsum.) This showed a source for the universal supply of that manure 
to some extent. Further, Mr. M. Tuorney had found sulphate of lime 
ready formed in specimens of wet earth which I supposed the least likely to 
retain that ingredient — and thus was indicated another general supply of 
gypsum. 

The increased interest excited by these new observations, and also the 
new views as to the cause of the failures of most of the former applications 
of this manure, induced the sinking of a pit in the gypseous earth, on the 
river beach at Coggins Point, to the depth of 18 feet below ordinary high 
tide. This digging for the lower 1 3 feet was in a very compact and fine 
clay (E) or clay marl, as it would have been designated in England, from its 
texture and sensible qualities, but which contained no visible or apparent 
fertilizing ingredient, except a very small sprinkling of shells, and elsewhere 
some little sulphuret of iron in small lumps and in minute crystals, visible 
in a few detached spots only. The appearances promised so little of value 
or remuneration, (and less so as the digging was sunk lower,) that the 
work was suspended. ]!ut the blacker earth above (/>) and also the clay 
(E) were carried out for experiment on clover, (May 26th,) of which the 
first crop had just been grazed off closely, and the cattle removed. As the 
season was so far advanced, and benefit so little counted on, the covering 
was made heavier than in the winter and early spring before (and of which 



216 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

the full benefit had been already seen on the first or spring crop of clover) ; 
100 bushels of the upper and better earth, and 150 of the clay, being ap- 
plied to the acre. A good rain fell the next night ; and in less than ten 
days there were visible and manifest beneficial effects from both kinds of 
earth, but better from the upper— which effects increased to fully the doub- 
ling of the growth by the first of August. The hard lumps of the compact 
clay soon split and crumbled when exposed to the air, and even without 
rain. The remarkable benefits of these applications induced the resuming 
of the digging, and another and much deeper pit was dug as early as the 
other labors of the farm permitted, and a statement will presently be made 
of the section thereby exposed. But previous to this, it is proper to de- 
scribe another like operation, and its results, at a more interesting locality. 
The same general appearance of the gypseous earth, and mostly of the 
poorer kind of greenish color mottled with pale yellow clay, is exhibited all 
along the river bank of Coggins Point and the lands above, to the Ever- 
green farm — interrupted only by the parts of marshy or more ancient allu- 
vial lands; or where the stratum has been broken and concealed' by the 
ancient land-slips which have greatly altered the original levels and form of 
the surface of that whole stretch of land bordering on the river and overlying 
the green earth formation. This operation by the land slipping and sinking 
continues, and some new effects are seen every year. At many places 
along this stretch gypsum is perceptible in the green earth, either in crys- 
tals or in powder, and sometimes, and rarely, in considerable proportion, 
say from 5 to 15 per cent, of the whole mass. At the upper part of the 
river line of the Evergreen farm, (at the mouth of Bayley's creek, and two 
miles below City Point,) the river bank has peculiar and remarkable fea- 
tures, which deserve particular notice. It was here in 1817 that I first dis- 
covered this green earth formation, and thence traced it to my own farm 
and then residence, Coggins Point, and elsewhere in that neighborhood. 

The lower visible part of the body of green-sand earth at Evergreen is 
laid bare by the wasting inroads of the river, (by which it is rapidly wash- 
ing away,) for 200 yards in length. The southern or upper extremity, for 
some 20 yards, approaches nearly in appearance to the general character 
of the upper stratum before described. But all the remainder is different, 
and much richer in the dark or green granules than generally elsewhere. 

Since this article was commenced, Capt. H. H. Cocke, the present pro- 
prietor of Evergreen, at my suggestion and request, had a shaft dug for 
examination, which, with an extension of my own after he had ceased 
his operations, added to the natural and higher exposure of the section, 27 
feet below the beach, and 25 below common high tide. The several strata 
of the whole section, and their variations, will be described in their descend- 
ing order. 

At top — 
1st. Surface soil (sloping back irregularly to the table land, which is much 
higher,) on (2d) gravelly and sandy sub-soil, pervious to water, of various 
depths— lying on strata nearly all horizontal. Next, 
10 feet of yellow sandy miocene marl. 

8 feet of yellowish clay, (supposed eocene,) intermixed throughout, with 
very small crystals and powder of sulphate of lime— the clay not com- 
pact or solid, but open and loose throughout. (Query : Is not this the 
equivalent of the eocene marl at Coggins Point, with its former shells 
and carbonate of lime completely changed to sulphate of lime, and the re- 
mainder dissolved and lost J) 
5 feet of gypseous earth — the general color, green mottled and streaked 
with yellow ochre, and full throughout of very minute crystals of sulphate 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 217 

of lime, supposed to be about 10 to 15 per cent, of the whole mass. No 
shells or casts seen in the part exposed by digging for examination. 

7 feet of brownish mottled clay, feeling smooth and soapy, containing nu- 
merous small crystals of sulphate of lime. 

9 feet very pure white clay or fuller's-earth, in horizontal layers, separated 
by veins of the yellow clay (or iron ochre) before mentioned, other veins 
of the same sometimes also inclined and crossing the horizontal veins — 
the outsides of the lumps of clay colored by oxide of iron. The clay 
all broken into irregular lumps, as if the fissures had been formed by the 
contraction in drying of clay soft and distended with wetness. No shells, 
nor appearance of them, but many pure and transparent and beautiful 
crystals of sulphate of lime here and there, some weighing several 
ounces. This stratum changing gradually into the next of 

4 feet of dark bluish clay, the coloring matter being green-sand, mottled 
with irregular streaks of bright yellow, becoming brown below where 
oozing water begins to show and is reddish with sulphate of iron, or 
other ferruginous matter in solution. This stratum full of large and solid 
crystals of sulphate of lime, amounting apparently to from 25 to 35 per 
cent, of the whole mass— the crystals colored dark gray, because of some 
impurities in small grains (green-sand?) being enclosed and diffused 
through them. No shells. This changing into the next, of 

1 1 feet of same dark or nearly black clay, nearly uniform color, and still 
compact texture, and feeling smooth and soapy — with very few crystals, 
and much less sulphate of lime than the preceding, but many small and 
scattered eocene white shells, quite rotten, and, being moist, as soft as 
dough. The shells, mostly several kinds of very large turritellas. Fewer 
shells as descending. At top of the stratum some large and very perfect 
specimens of the ostrea compressirostra.Q) To level of the river at com- 
mon high tide. 
Below high tide. 
14 feet very similar to the last, the shells very few for the greater 
part, but increasing near the next. No crystals or other sulphate of lime 
visible. The green-sand granules coarser— sometimes in small lumps 
quite pure, or unmixed with any thing else. These granules breaking 
easily, though as if hard or brittle, and not like a soft soapy clay as usual 
—though as green as before. Many small cylindrical tubes seen, which 
seem to be formed on, or coated with pure green-sand in mass and green 
in color, and the hollows filled with black granules. 
1 1 feet of shells lying generally close together, and serving to make the 
whole stratum a calcareous marl, of perhaps 30 per cent, or more of carbo- 
nate of lime— the earth filling the shells and between them being the 
same black earth, as rich as before in green-sand. At top, some very 
large and perfect shells of ostrea compressirostra, and another much 
thicker ostrea, not known.* The shells mostly very large turritellce of 
different species— near bottom fewer of these and mostly crassatellce. 
The shells nearly as numerous as before, at this depth, at which the dig- 
ging was abandoned, at 25 feet below tide. 

The whole section, from the top of the highest undoubted eocene 
stratum to where the digging ceased, (without any indication of being 
near the end,) is 61 feet — and if the clay and gypsum stratum below the 

• One of these last (both valves) weighed 5 Ib-s. Mr. M. Tuoroey, to whose much 
better information on this subj. c'« I ought to deter, supposes this very large and heavy 
shell to be an 0. compressirostra of unusual age and growth. If so, however, it is cer- 
tainly very different in appearance from that shell, as usually seen higher up in this 
bed, even when wider than the very thick and he*vy ostrea. 



2|8 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

miocene be added, which, though not certain, I believe to be eocene, 
there would be 69 feet. And if this and the two other lower clay strata 
be deducted, there will still remain 45 feet of strata exposed, all rich in 
green-sand, and of it 9 feet very rich also in suiphate of lime or gypsum, 
and 11 feet moderately rich in carbonate of lime. Such a deposite is 
well worth the examination of geologists and chemists, and the trial of 
farmers. 

It was remarkable that at this place only of all the usual strata of all the 
then known deposites of green-sand or eocene marl in Virginia, were found 
exposed, the shells of the ostrea compressiroslra — and below tide the other 
before unknown and very thick and heavy ostrea; and that at this place 
there has not been found a single shell of either the ostrea sellozformis or 
cardita planicosta, the latter of which is so abundant through all other 
known eocene deposites, and the former in the calcareous eocene elsewhere. 
These facts seemed to indicate (a? well as the general dip to the eastward,) 
that the strata at Evergreen are much more elevated than the same at 
Coggins Point — and that by digging deeper, the lower and all the strata 
of the former might be found at other parts of the known area (before de- 
scribed) of the eocene formation. 

This inference added to other considerations caused to be sunk the se- 
cond shaft above mentioned in the beach of Coggins Point, 130 yards dis- 
tant from the first one, which by this time had been filled completely by the 
sand driven by storms and high tides. The digging was made at a low part 
of the bank, and which therefore did not show either the eocene marl or 
the miocene, the former of which is seen in the higher bank at a short dis- 
tance, and both together at the distance of a mile. The different strata 
of the actual section at the new digging, taken descending from the top of 
;he bank, were as follows: 

1 foot, surface soil— gray loam, ancient alluvial deposite. 

7 feet of pale yellow clay, containing much coarse silicious sand. 

4 feet rounded or water- worn pebbles, of all sizes, from 4 inches through 
to coarse gravel, held together by enough clay and ferruginous earth to 
fill the interstices between the pebbles. None calcareous. 

2 feet of very thin layers of hard and gritty gray clay, alternating with 
others of coarse ferruginous sand. 

2 feet of poor greenish earth, more than half the surface of the section 

brown in spots, and indurated with oxide cf iron. 

(Here should be, as elsewhere in the neighborhood, though absent at this 
particular locality, either one or both, the miocene marl, (^4,) and next be- 
low the eocene calcareous marl (B) described in the preceding pages.) 

(C) 9 feet of the ordinary upper layer of gypseous earth — green color, mot- 
tled with spots of bright yellow clay, (or ochre,) and some other 
spots of unctuous reddish brown clay. Very slight efflorescence of gyp- 
sum on the surface. 

{D) 3 feet of darker and nearly uniform color, almost black, from the greater 
proportion of green-sand. This and the preceding, containing many 
impressions of shells, but no shells or fragments, and no carbonate of 
lime. More efflorescence of gypsum, and also on next — 

(D) 3 feet of same, except that some shells are seen — and increase in the 
next to level of river at common high tide. 

(D) 6 feet of same (next below tide — ) the shells mostly cardita planicosta 
— fewer of cytherea and corbula. No ostrea or turrit ella. Small and 
slender shark's teeth (so called) in perfect preservation, the points and 
edges being as sharp as in teeth of the living animal. 

(E) 15 feet bluish gray or lead-colored clay, (from 6 to 22 feet below tide,) 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. o i q 

having nearly the texture of clay marl. Very compact and firm in tex- 
ture—unctuous to the touch, but not adhesive or tough -does not bend 
to pressure, but breaks— cuts smooth, except when the edge of the knife 
meets parts of shells, or grains of silicious sand, which, as well as gra- 
nules of green-sand, are irregularly intermixed throughout. The shells 
very rotten, and flattened by pressure. Sometimes in masses, or thin 
bands or regular layers, becoming less and less in quantity as descend- 
ing, and but kw seen at and below 10 feet of this stratum. Numerous 
particles of mica throughout. ( 'hanging gradually to next. At 12 to 13 
feet of its depth, many hard lumps of sulphuret of iron. The upper three 
or four feet of this penetrated by numerous hollow cylinders, of an inch 
or more in diameter, and in every direction-obviously having been bored 
by shell-fish. These hollows are filled by the arreen earth of the stratum 
above, which thus makes nearly half the mass. (This clay and the layer 
above (Z?) were the kinds used for manure from the first opened pit ) 

3 feet (22 to 25 below tide) of brownish and more friable clay, intermixing 
at first with the above. Green-sand much more abundant than in the 
preceding, and partly in very large granules. 

3£ feet (25 to 28 below tide) of very smooth and firm clay, of delicate lilac 
color at first, but becoming paler as descending, until nearly white 
Splits easily into flakes like thick slate ; and still thinner lamina show 
that the earth was a deposite in tranquil waters. Thin flakes (not 
thicker than writing paper,) and sometimes a mere powder of pure sul- 
phuret of iron visible between many of the layers of clay, and causing 
them to separate easily. The upper foot of this every where penetrated 
by small hollow tubes, (from an eighth to the third of an inch in diame- 
ter,) which are filled by the brown and green variegated earth of the 
stratum above-causing a lump when cuf smooth to'appear like a con 
glomerate of differently colored marbles. Except in these borings no 
green-sand deposite, and no shelly matter. The sulphuret of iron, which 
is through this stratum visible in powder, or thin layers, and above in 
small masses or lumps, is diffused through all the strata containing green 
sand, except the highest (C.) Through this and the upper gray day (E) 
some small black pebbles seen, which appear as if formed by melting 
The same found in the eocene marl. A sudden change to the next— 

2£ feet (28i to 31 below high tide) of remarkably smooth and unctuous 
but firm clay of reddish brown color, (or dull brick red,) and homoge- 
neous texture as well as color. Cuts as smooth as the best hard soap 
Deposited in thin lamina?, and breaks or splits easily in straight lines 
both in the direction of the lamina and lengthwise at right-angles to their 
direction— the grain and fracture appealing like that of rotten wood 
Across these two directions, the fracture very uneven. Near the bottom 
of the richest green stratum (J)) there is a barely perceptible oozin^ of 
water. All below dry, and the two last strata remarkably dry. They 
could not be more so if within three feet of the surface of a high knoll 

1 foot (31 to 32 below tide) of same as the last in texture, but of pale blue 
color. 

1 foot (32 to 33 below tide) mixture of the last, in small lumps imbedded in 
the next, as if broken up by a violent current, and deposited in rapid water 

17 feet (33 to 49 below tide, the lowest digging,) black earth— richest in 
green sand (supposed to be 60 per cent) mixed with a few fragments 
(less than 2 percent, on an average) of shells— mostly small, and all very 
rotten. Kinds, mostly of turritella (some of which are large,) mytylus 
corbula and crassatella. Many small and a few large shells of ostrea 
compressiroslra near top of this stratum and again near the lowest part 
where the work was stopped by the water rising from below ' 



220 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

The whole, so far as dug, added to the before exposed bank, amounted 
to 66 feet of the eocene deposite, of which 49 feet was below the level of 
high tide. The last stratum, of which was penetrated 17 feet before the rise 
of spring water compelled the work to be discontinued, was manifestly the 
same with that at Evergreen which was even with high tide (and extend- 
ing above and below,) and which was there 25 feet thick. It way a subject 
of much regret, after so much labor, that the still lower stratum, full of 
shells, could not be reached, and which probably might have been done in 
8 feet more of digging. However, enough was done to show that the quan- 
tity is inexhaustible of the layers richest in green-sand, (whatever may be 
that degree of richness, ) independent of the other layers. 

Besides the main object of this laborious examination by digging as low 
as possible, to learn more of the quality and quantity of the earth for manure, 
and as a matter of curiosity, there was another inducement. The whole 
bottom of the river across to Berkley (below the thin covering of loose 
and soft mud,) according to its variation of depth, must be formed of one 
or another of the same layers shown in this digging of 49 feet below the 
water level; and, of course, Harrison's Bar, which lies between the Coggins 
and Berkley shores, must be so formed. No earth more strongly resists 
the washing action of water than the gypseous earth, even when the least 
mixed with clay. This peculiar quality must be the cause of the existence 
of this bar, which presents so serious an obstacle to the navigation of the 
river ; and it may be thence inferred what would be the degree of difficulty 
of its removal, and also that the removal if effected would be permanent. 

Various and contradictory as had been many of the results of my ex- 
periments of the green earth as manure, there had been perfect agreement 
in some respects. Thus, as before stated generally, the earth has never 
■■ been beneficial as manure on acid soil— but rarely on corn, and never 
(directly) on any other grain crops; and (on proper soils) generally and 
greatly beneficial on clover, and perhaps all plants of the clover and pea 
tribe— and the effects, when produced, have never been permanent, nor 
even very durable. And the effects shown in these points of agreement 
were nearly all the reverse of those ascribed to the New Jersey green- 
sand. In regard to these effects, in the absence of all certain and particular 
information to be obtained otherwise, I found it necessary to seek informa- 
tion in person. The results of my inquiries and persona! examinations, 
in general, showed that the green-sand (called marl) of New Jersey, though 
agreeing in some respects with ours in action as manure, is operative gene- 
rally on the greater number of soils and on most crops, and is also very dura- 
ble in effect. On the other hand, much larger quantities are applied there, 
(usually 200 bushels, and sometimes 400 or more to the acre) than I have 
done with ours ; and something of the more general benefit, and longer 
duration may perhaps be owing to that circumstance.* Whether the green- 
sand is indeed the principal, or a very important manuring agent, of the 
James river earth, or whether the other ingredients may not be still 
more active than its green-sand, is yet undecided. 

It is indeed strange that such doubts should exist at this late day as to 
the manuring action and effect of this earth— and still more so that the 
chemical composition and ingredients of the earth should not have been 
long ago ascertained. Yet previous to the recent imperfect application of 
tests above referred to, there had been no known full or correct chemical 
analysis made of the earth in question ; nor even any partial examination 
for and report of the ingredients, that was entitled to any respect for 

* See report at length on the New Jersey green-sand, and its operation, at page 418 
vol. x. Farmers' Register. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 



221 



accuracy and fidelity. For these reasons, I engaged the valuable services 
of Professor C. U. Shepard, for the analyses of specimens which I selected 
from the different strata of the earth at Coggins Point, exposed in recent 
diggings, including several which had been tried as manure and had operat- 
ed with remarkable power and benefit. lis report of the analyses, which 
has been received since the preceding and subsequent portions of this article 
were written, will now be presented. It enables me to furnish more of 
what is valuable, because more certain than every thing else I could offer, 
or than has before been offered to the public on this subject— prominent as 
it has been made in the reports of the geological survey of Virginia. 

New Haven, October 26, 1842. 

Dear sir — The specimens of green-sand and accompanying earths have, agreeably to 
your request, received my particular attention ; and I now proceed to apprise you of the 
results at which I have arrived. 

Commencing with the mechanical analysis of the green-sand, I was not a little sur- 
prised to find that the green particles, when cleared by washing of a slight investment of 
clay, assumed the aspect of chlorite and green earth, and more rarely of grains of ser- 
pentine and fine scales of mica. The other ingredients of the earth were chiefly grains 
of quartz, (some of which were penetrated by chlorite,) and more rarely specks of gar- 
net, iron pyrites, and what appeared to be yellow phosphate of lime. Fragments of 
shells, in a very decayed state, occur disseminated through the earth; and 1 detected 
also small teeth and bones of fishes. The proportions of the leading ingredients are 
very difficult to establish with precision ; and after all my examinations I can only give 
them approximative^ and within wide limits. Thus, the quartz grains may be said to 
constitute from 60 to 80 per cent., the chloritic and micaceous grains from 10 to 15 per 
cent., and the fine clay from 3 to 5 per cent. 

Nothing is plainer than that the green particles possess the character here attributed to 
them ; since they put on all the properties so common to chlorite, being sometimes in 
regular hexagonal plates, though usually in little granules made up of impalpable grains, 
which under the pestle easily separate, with an oily feel, into bright green specks. Sub- 
jected to acids and heat, it agrees with true chlorite. 

The existence of such a mineral in the present formation offers nothing remarkable in 
a geological point of view, since it may have originated in the decomposition of chlorite 
slate rocks, or of veins in primitive rocks, (in which chlorite often abounds,) and in both 
cases iron pyrites is its common attendant. Besides, it may have been derived from the 
metamorphosis of pyroxene, or from amygdaloidal traps, a source of green earth very 
often recognized in Europe and America. Indeed, chlorite (which is but another name 
for green talc) is often interchanged for mica as an ingredient of primitive rocks, and is 
every where little prone to decomposition, being, on the whole, one of the most persist- 
ent of the simple minerals. 

Neither can it be objected that its chemical constitution is incompatible with the re- 
sults obtained for green earth ; for here we must bear in mind, also, that it is impossible 
accurately to separate the green particles from the mica, serpentine and other ingredients 
with which they are associated. 

M. Berthier found the following composition in the green grains from the green-sand 
of Havre (France) — 

Silica 50.00 

Protoxide of iron - - - 21.00 

Alumina ----- 7.00 

Potassa - - - 10.00 

Alumina ----- 11.00 



• 99.00 J 



Mr. Seybert found in that of New Jersey- 
Silica - - - - 49.83 
Alumina . - - - 6.00 
Magnesia - - - 1-83 
Potassa ... - 10.12 
Water ----- 9.80 
Protoxide of iron - - 21.53 
Loss --- 89 



* Geological Manual, by H. T. de.la Beche, Phila., 1832, p. 255. 
t American Journal of Science, vol. xvii., p. 277. 

28 



100.001 



222 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

Prof. Wm. B. Rogers found in the green-sand of Virginia- 
Silica 51.70 

Protoxide of iron - - • 25.20 

Potassa 10.33 

Water .... 10. 

Magnesia, a trace. 

97.23* 

The foregoing may be taken as a fair exhibition of the composition of the green par- 
ticles in green-sand ; and the following analyses may serve to show the constitution of 
such chlorites and mica as may be presumed to be most analogous to the green substances 
in the earth under consideration. 
M. Vauquelin found in the green-earth of Verona — 

Silica 52.00 

Magnesia .... 6.00 

Alumina ----- 7.00 

Protoxide of iron - - - 23.C0 

Potassa ----- 7.50 

Water .... 4.00 



99.50f 
Dr. Thomson found in the chlorite-earth, from the highlands of Scotland- 
Silica 48.166 

Magnesia .... 2.916 

Alumina .... 16.851 
Oxide of iron - - - 19.000 

Potassa ----- 6.558 

Lime .... 2.675 

Water 2.350 



98.718| 

The composition of the most common silvery mica from Zinwald (Bohemia) was 
ascertained by M. Klaproth to be the following — 

Silica ----- 47. 

Alumina .... 20. 

Potassa ----- 14.50 

Ox. iron .... 15.50 

Ox. manganese - - - - 1.75 

98.75§ 
Having described the grounds on which I arrive at the conclusion that the green grains 
of this earth are chlorite, or chlorite blended with mica, and rarely specks of serpen- 
tine, I cannot but express the opinion, that as a nutritive manure the efficacy of the 
green particles has been greatly overrated. As these particles are very little liable to 
decomposition, their action, whatever it may be, must be slow, and, I should infer, nearly 
imperceptible. Indeed, I am rather disposed to regard its favorable operation, if indeed 
it has any, as flowing from a mechanical agency, after the manner of a clay, than as 
arising from the liberation of its potassa through chemical decomposition. Not that I 
would call in question the usefulness of the earth taken as a whole, for happily this is 
too well established. But when I find a decided content of sulphate of lime, with carbon- 
ate and phosphate of lime in addition thereto, together with distinct traces of organic 
matter, it appears to me unnecessary to look any farther in order to account for the phe- 
nomena in the case. 

I now proceed to state my method of examination, together with the results obtained. 
The specimens were kept in a dry room, exposed to air in shallow dishes, for several 

weeks ; after which, portions free from crystals of sulphate of lime visible by the naked 
eye, and large fragments of shells, were heated in a platina capsule to 300°, Fah., in 
order to expel hygrometric moisture, and subsequently to low redness, to decompose or- 
ganic matter.|| The organic matter is very inconsiderable, and was in no instances rigidly 
determined. 

_ Having ascertained by experiment that the iron-pyrites was not decomposable by tepid 
dilute hydrochloric acid, the following method was resorted to for the determination of 

* Farmers' Register, vol. ii., p. 131. 
t Shepard's Mineralogy, vol. ii., p. 225. 
j Idem, ii., p. 225. 
§ Idem, ii., p. 41. 

II This last step was always attended with the extrication of a little sulphur. 



CALCAREOUS MANUHES— APPENDIX. 



223 



the phosphate of lime. Two hundred grains of the triturated earth were suffered to stand 
(with occasional agitation) in contact with a dilute hydrochloric acid for three hours. 
The whole was then transferred to a filter, and the earth well washed thereon, with 
abundance of tepid water. The clear fluid and washings thus obtained were super-satu- 
rated with ammonia, and the precipitate subsequently digested in a warm potassic solution 
for the removal of the silica and the alumina. The per-oxide of iron and phosphate of 
lime now remaining, after being well washed, were treated with a cold, dilute acetic 
acid, whereby the phosphate alone was taken into solution. It was then precipitated by 
ammonia, dried, ignited and weighed. Having found reason to believe that the propor- 
tion of finely divided phosphate of lime was pretty uniform in the different specimens 
of the green-sand, I was only at the pains to determine its exact proportion in speci- 
men No. 1.* Having ascertained how much peroxide of iron each sample contained, 
this amount was deducted from that yielded by the treatment of the same specimen with 
nitro-hydrochloric acid, (aided by gentle heat,) whereby the sulphuret of iron was de- 
composed. Thus the exact quantity of iron which was engaged by the sulphur (and 
consequently the amount of bi-sulphuret of iron) was ascertained- 

The carbonate of lime was determined in the usual way, viz., by treating the first obtained 
solution in hydrochloric acid with ammonia, whereby the silica, alumina, peroxide of 
iron, and phosphate of lime were thrown down, leaving the lime and magnesia alone in 
a state of suspension. The former was precipitated by oxalate of ammonia, and subse- 
quently the latter by phosphoric acid. 

The sulphate of lime was ascertained by boiling a determinate quantity of the green- 
sand in water until the whole of this salt present was taken into solution. The clear 
solution was treated with chloride of barium, and the sulphate of baryta ignited and 
weighed. The sulphuric acid present in the earth was thu3 arrived at, and, by subse- 
quent calculation, the sulphate of lime originally present was ascertained. 

Sulphate of alumina (but no sulphate of iron) was found to exist, in traces, by the 
precipitation of alumina, occasioned on the treatment of the water boiled on the earth 
with ammonia. But in each case it was too inconsiderable for the determination of its 
proportion. Chloride of calcium (muriate of lime) was ascertained by treating the 
same fluid with nitrate ot silver. .Its proportion did not exceed that in which it exists 
also in common soils. 

Results obtained on specimens of green-sand earth from Coggins Point, James river. 

"No. 1. From 8 inches within the exposed side of a ravine, where a stream flowed 
by, and 15 feet from the top of the green earth. "t [Middle part of stratum D, 
see page 218.] 

Hygrometric moisture, (lost at 300°) - - 5.50 
By heating to low redness, it lost in addition 2.03 

Phosphate of lime 0.25 

Carbonate of magnesia, in decided traces. 
Sulphate of alumina, in traces. 
"No. 3. Same as number 1, except from a deeper excavation. 

Hygrometric moisture (lost at 300°) - - 4.600 
By heating to low redness it lost in addition - 2.200 
Carbonate of lime ..... 1.550 

Bi-sulphuret of iron 3.066 

Carbonate of magnesia and sulphate of alumina in traces. 

Phosphate of lime, about as in number 1. 

Sulphate of lime ------ 0.813 

" No. 6. Three feet below the river beach, [from pit, lower part of D, half a mile 
distant from preceding.]" 

Hygrometric moisture 5.400 

By heating to low redness, it lost in addition - 2.060 

Carbonate of lime 0.535 

Bi-sulphuret of iron 2.060 

Sulphate of lime 0.661 

Carbonate of magnesia and sulphate of alumina in traces. 
Phosphate of lime a3 in number 1. 

* I will here observe that, by the process now described, it was ascertained that had 
the whole of the precipitate by ammonia from the hydrochloric acid solution been taken 
for phosphate of lime, it would have involved the error of an over estimate of the phos- 
phate by nearly 800 per cent. 

t This specimen was not thoroughly analyzed, and therefore the contents are reported 
but in part. The next (No. 3) was deemed the most important, and a more correct speci- 
men of this layer, (D, ) and therefore to it the examination of Prof. Shepard was especially 



224 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

"No. 9. See foregoing, page 218. Having sulphuret of iron in powder, or minute 
crystals;" [taken from 1-1 feet below the beach, in E.~\ 

Carbonate of lime 2.350 

Bi-sulphuret of iron ----- 5.821 

Sulphate of lime 2.309 

(Carbonate of magnesia not found.) 

" No. 10. Several thin layers of compressed shells. 1 lo 3 inches thick," [contained in 
stratum E ] 

Carbonate of lime 56.00 

Phosphate of lime 0.84 

No. 2. [D] from 4 feet lower than number 1, was examined with results similar to 
1 and 3. 

No. 4. [D] from 4 feet below beach, and half a mile irom number 1, was found to be 
rich in sulphate of lime and to contain bi-sulphuret of iron. 

No. 5. [Z>] "From another spot, and has been exposed to the weather from last winter 
to June on the field where applied as manure." Is richer than No. 2 or 4 in sulphate 
of lime, but inferior to either in bi-sulphuret of iron. It likewise affords more sulphate 
of alumina than any sample examined. 

" JNo. 11. The clay at 16 to 18 feet deep ;" [supposed when selected to be the poorest 
part of stratum jE.] 

Carbonate of lime - - - 1.45 

It is rich in sulphate of lime, and has traces of sulphate of alumina, and bi-sulphuret 
of iron. 

It is to be kept in mind that in these analyses no account is taken of such sized crys- 
tals of sulphate of lime as readily meet the eye, or of large fragments of shells, the 
occasional presence of both which must often essentially enhance the gypseous and cal- 
careous contents of these samples. The proportions in which they may occur at different 
depths and localities can readily be detei mined, however, by the practical agriculturist. 
The same may be said of the phosphatic ingredient so far as the teeth and bones of fishes 
are concerned. 

If we assume the average proportion of bi-sulphuret of iron in these earths to be 2 
per cent., and suppose the whole of the sulphate to become oxidized, it would give rise 
to 2.722 per cent, of sulphuric acid ; to saturate which would require 1.905 of lime, and 
thereby produce 4.627 per cent, of (anhydrous) sulphate of lime. But 2.722 of lime 
wouid demand 3.383 per cent, of carbonate of lime in the soil. Now in the three ana- 
lyses (Nos. 3, 6 and 9) made, the bi-sulphuret of iron, by average, equals 3.649 per cent., 
and the carbonate of lime in the same equals but 1.478 per cent. — a quantity too small 
for the saturation of the acid, even after a liberal allowance is made for the increase of 
calcareous matter from the occasional presence of large fragments of shells. 

It would therefore appear to be an obvious deduction from these inquiries, that dress- 
ings of lime, and especially of calcareous bands, like No. 10, should be employed in con- 
junction with the green-sand soil. 

Having now replied in the best way I am able to your various inquiries, I leave it for 
you to make such other practical inferences from the information afforded as in your 
more experienced judgment it may seem to authorize— and remain, very respectfully, 
your obedient servant, Charles Upham Shepard. 

Edmund Ruffin, Esq., Petersburg, Va. 

The specimens numbered above 1 , 2, 3, were from one locality, and of 
earth which was used as manure for clover of this year, with effect as 
great as any ever known on marled land ; and with no certain benefit 
on an adjoining space, (also in clover,) of the same soil naturally, but 
not marled. Numbers 4, 5, and 6, were from the pit dug in the beach, 
half a mile distant, apparently similar to each other, and to the preceding 
specimens. All these are of the dark stratum (D) richest in green-sand, 
(except the lowest, E,) and all before rated by me as containing 50 per 
cent, of the pure granules. Professor Rogers stated the same to contain 
60 to 70 per cent. (See F. Register, vol. ii., p. 750, and 2d edition of 'Es- 
say on Calcareous Manures,' p. 1 16.) Even if leaving the green-sand out of 
consideration, and out of the estimate of value, there would still remain 
enough of active manuring principles to produce a large share of all the 
beneficial effects which I have found from the use of this earth ; and I have 

requested, and was so directed. It is therefore that the contents of bi-sulphuret of iron, car- 
bonate of lime, and sulphate of lime are not stated of No. 1, as in No. 3. — E. R. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX 225 

heard of but few other applications in Virginia, other than those made on 
Coggins Point farm, and of none with different or better certain effects. With 
the help of surplus carbonate of lime in the soil, (furnished by nature or by 
previous marling or liming,) 100 bushels of this earth, averaging in 
strength the ingredients of these specimens analyzed by Professor Shepard, 
would furnish nearly 5 bushels of pure sulphate of lime (gypsum) ; and 40 
bushels to the acre would furnish 2 bushels of sulphate (if lime. Not one 
of these specimens contained any gypsum visible to the eye; and but one 
specimen (number 9) contained any visible sulphuretof iron; and therefore 
these ingredients may be fairly supposed to be at least as abundant in the 
earth dug in any considerable operation. What the green-sand or any 
other ingredients may do in addition, I pretend not to estimate. But so 
far as I have learned from my own experience and all known experience 
of other persons, the whole operation of this earth, when used alone, is 
precisely of such kind as I would anticipate from gypsum, though yielding 
more of benefit in measure and value. Nor should I therefore be under- 
stood as placing a low estimate on the value of the effects produced. Since 
seeing the effects this year, and especially since having formed the opinion 
that the upper and exposed parts (most generally used formerly) are com- 
paratively worthless and should be avoided, I count on much benefit being 
derived from this manure, and am desirous that it shall be largely used ; 
as my son and partner, and the sole director of our farming, proposes to 
do for the next year's growth of clover. Still, I am now as far as ever from 
believing in or expecting such great and regular benefit as would be in- 
ferred to be certain from views and statements which rest upon other au- 
thority. 

It may not be useless to note another point of recent resemblance be- 
tween these two manures, both of which seem so capricious and uncertain 
in operation in general. This year (1842) the applications of the green 
earth on the Coggins Point farm, whether made in the beginning of the winter 
preceding, in March, or in the beginning of summer, have acted more quick- 
ly and powerfully than any known before. This I had ascribed to the earth 
being mostly obtained from deeper excavations. But I have lately heard, 
from Messrs. Hill Carter and John A. Selden, both extensive and experi- 
enced and successful users of gypsum, that they have never before known 
the good effects of that manure to be so remarkable as in all their applica- 
tions of this year. 

(d.) EOCENE GREEN-SAND MARL. 

Except in the lower stratum exposed in the pit recently dug at Ever- 
green, this peculiar valuable kind of marl has not yet been known in 
Virginia elsewhere than on and near the borders of the Pamun key river; 
though there can be but little doubt that this or other eocene deposites are 
to be found elsewhere than within the limits here stated of the now known 
localities. It is more than probable' that other rivers cut through and ex- 
pose some of the eocene as well as miocene deposites; and that deep 
diggings would reach them also in the intervening high lands. The 
Pamunkey eocene marl is seen first, or most eastward, at Liberty Hall, 
(Mr. Waring' s farm,) in King William county; and it is found on nearly 
every farm above, to South Wales, in Hanover, the farm of Mr. William 
F. Wickham, just below the junction of the North Anna and South Anna 
rivers, and on the farm of Mr. Williams Carter, across the Pamunkey, in 
Caroline county. This distance in a straight line is about 28 miles ; and 
the very winding course of the Pamunkey serves to make the exposure 



226 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

of the bed of marl show an average width of three or more miles. 
Throughout this area, it is found in great abundance at numerous points — 
though of great variety of appearance and of value at different elevations, 
and in very different degrees of accessibleness, or ease of working. 

This marl every where has its calcareous portion (which is usually small 
in comparison to good miocene marls,) intermixed with a large proportion 
of green-sand. r l he calcareous earth varies from 10 to 40 per cent, at 
different diggings, or different layers at the same locality; and the green- 
sand perhaps from 20 to 40 per cent, as estimated by the eye.* In some 
places, the one ingredient predominates in quantity, and elsewhere the other. 
No one specimen has been found rich in both of these ingredients. So far 
as known, the remainder of the whole mass, (as in miocene marls,) is of 
silicious sand and clay. 

Below this green-sand marl lies a bed of brownish green earth, slightly 
sprinkled with small eocene shells and their fragments, but which, or all the 
calcareous matter present, would very rarely amount to 5 per cent, and 
sometimes not 2 per cent. To this lower stratum is also applied the term 
marl by the proprietors, as is done in New Jersey. But this term should 
not be given where the calcareous earth is so small in amount as 5 per 
cent. Though it may be impossible to draw a precise line of demarkation, 
either on the banks, or to distinguish them by definition in words, still these 
two earths ought to be known by different terms. By green-sand earth or 
green earth, will be here understood the lower stratum, or any other having 
green-sand in considerable quantity, and not more than 5 per cent, of cal- 
careous earth, if any. And I would not consider any as green-sand marl, 
that did not have as much as 10 per cent, of carbonate of lime— leaving as 
doubtful and debatable, such as had more than 5 and less than 10 per cent. 

The Pamunkey river is very narrow and yet deep, and its high banks, 
or cliffs, formed generally of green-sand marl and green-sand earth, are 
nearly perpendicular. The remarkable power which green-sand has of 
resisting the washing of water, is doubtless the cause of the narrowness 
of this river, and of the forces of its strong ordinary tides and violent current 
in freshes having operated to deepen the channel, instead of wearing away 
the banks. Slides of the banks, or land-slips, are frequent ; large masses 
of the upper stratum of soil breaking loose, and, with the growth of large 
trees, slip down the steep bank into the river, scraping clean the exposed 
parts of the strata in the descent. In this way, sections of the bank 40 feet 
or more in height are exposed more completely to view than would be 
done by the progress of any diggings for marl, however rapid or extensive. 

The general appearance of any one of such sections, taken at one of 
the several exposures from one to five miles below Newcastle ferry, is as 
follows: At top, below the soil and ordinary sub-soil, (or diluvial earth,) of 
say 10 to 20 feet, there is generally, though not always, a stratum of some 
4 or 5 feet of olive colored earth, so called, and which term is descriptive 
of the appearance. This earth is of a greenish brown color, contains 
small sharks' teeth and fishes' bones, but no shells. Its appearance so nearly 
resembles the marl below, that it has been sometimes dug and used instead, 
either from the ignorance of the conductor or the carelessness of the la- 
borers. It is entirely worthless as manure, as has been proved by careful 
experiments. A well dug (to obtain water) at Piping Tree ferry, pene- 
trated very deep into this olive earth without reaching marl. The earth 
thus removed was used as manure, without any benefit being produced. 

* These and all others named supposed proportions of green-sand were written before 
receiving Professor Shepard's report. His analyses mnke it seem probable that all my 
guesses of such proportions were too high. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 227 

Mr. Conrade Webb informed me that on his estate in New Kent he had 
made very careful comparative trials of applications of this olive earth, 
on land with and without marling, opposite to like pieces without the olive 
earth ; and in neither case did its application show any effect. 

Next, under this olive earth, is green-sand marl ; sometimes the upper 
part has layers full of the saddle oyster shells, in place, which also occur 
scattered throughout all this marl. Sometimes, as above Newcastle ferry, 
there are interspersed hard lumps much richer in calcareous matter than 
the surrounding body. The matrix in which these accidental bodies are 
imbedded, or the whole body when they are absent, is a dark gray marl, 
of nearly homogeneous texture, containing green-sand in large proportion, 
and very few shells or fragments. This sometimes continues down to the 
green-sand earth. But at and a little above the ferry, (on Mr. Carter Brax- 
ton's farm,) there occurs between them a stratum of larger shells, mostly 
the cardita planicosta, as close together as they can lie, well preserved in 
form, though very rotten, as all the white shells are. The shells of 
this layer are often stained superficially of a deep and vivid green, by the 
green-sand. This layer of shells lies on the brownish green earth before 
mentioned, having very little calcareous matter, and of which the depth is 
unknown, as its bottom has never been reached in any of the diggings. This 
layer of whole shells was not seen elsewhere. 

Such is the succession of strata at the fine bank of Mr. Carter Braxton, 
Hanover, a little above Newcastle ferry; and specimens of the several 
kinds, analyzed carefully, afforded the following results of calcareous matter. 
The proportions of green-sand were merely guessed at by the eye, but 
by careful examination, and with the aid of a magnifying glass. 
Upper stratum furnishing the greater proportion of all used for manure: 
100 grains contained of carbonate of lime - - - - 37 grains. 

100 grains of lower stratum only 2 

Another specimen of upper stratum, carbonate of lime - - 10 

and green-sand moderately coarse (supposed,) - - - 40 
At the ferry : 
100 grains of upper stratum, carbonate of lime, - - - 15 

and (supposed) of green-sand -35 

Lower stratum of same, carbonate of lime ... - 6 
Masses of stony hardness, interspersed in same, contained of 

carbonate of lime - - 67 

and green-sand 3 

At Mr. J. W. Tomlin's land, Hanover, about a mile below the ferry, the 
visible section of marl and green-sand earth together is 32 feet high, above 
low tide mark, and the green-sand earth making only 7 or 8 feet of the 
lowest part. All is eocene — as I found saddle oyster shells at the top of the 
light colored upper layer, next to the diluvial sandy sub-soil.* Specimens 
taken from different heights on this bank yielded the following proportions 
of carbonate of lime : 
From 7 feet above low tide, 100 grains contained of carbonate 

of lime 35 

At 14 feet 31 

At 29 feet 15 

Upper light-colored stratum — (not including in the specimen 

any of its few large saddle oyster shells) 6 

Thin stratum of hard shelly marl, low in the section - - 45 

* This light colored upper layer is stated by the state geologist, in his report, to be 
miocene. See first report, of 1835, and same copied at p. 670. vol. iii., Farmers' Re- 
gister. 



228 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

The green-sand stratum (brownish color) of 7 or 8 feet above the water 
was not analyzed ; but. as at all other places on this river, was evidently 
very poor in calcareous matter. 

On the land of Mr. George W. Bassett, Hanover, about 5 miles below 
Newcastle ferry, the marl appears rich and of more homogeneous texture 
and uniform appearance than generally elsewhere. Yet it is variable, and 
on the average is poor in calcareous matter. However, this marl, which 
has been largely used by Dr. Corbin Braxton, water-borne to Chericoke, 
8 miles below, has been wonderfully efficacious. Still it has not been used 
at all, or considered worth being applied, by its proprietor. Specimens 
analyzed at different times showed the following proportions of calcareous 
matter : 

Stratum a few feet above the level of river, 100 grains contain- 
ed of carbonate of lime, - - - - - - 10 grains. 

And green-sand (supposed,) 35 

Another (furnished and analyzed in 1840) carbonate of lime, 11 

And green-sand, 27 

Another, from different part of same bank, carbonate of lime, 45.50 

This body was examined personally by the state geologist, and his esti- 
mate of its contents of carbonate of lime and of green-sand was 34 per 
cent, of each. 

Over this marl is a regular stratum, perhaps 5 feet thick, of the olive 
earth. The marl descends to the level of the river, and therefore the green- 
sand earth below is not here visible. 

In the river bank of Northbury, in New Kent, one of the farms of Mr. 
Conrade Webb, the green-sand marl presents the usual appearance, and 
is overlaid by the olive colored earth. To my eye this marl was rather 
poor in the calcareous ingredient, and, as Mr. Webb supposed, in use was 
often adulterated by the carelessness of overseers and laborers, by admix- 
tures of the worthless olive earth. Still, the application as manure has 
had very good effect. A large quantity of this particular body has been 
dug and used ; but it has since been abandoned, because of the greater 
value of and more convenient access to other more recently discovered 
beds, which will presently be noticed. At Northbury, as Professor Rogers 
supposed and reported in 1835, "the precise point was determined at 
which the eocene first makes its appearance above the water line" of the 
Pamunkey. But it has been since found at Mr. Waring's farm, about 4 
miles lower, as well as at Waterloo, another part of Mr. Webb's estate, 
about two miles lower than the first diggings at Northbury. 

By using the borer in low places, but where no sign of marl was visible 
on the surface, Mr. Webb has since discovered the eocene marl which will 
be next described, at various points in a line stretching through the middle 
of his large estate, and furnishing a convenient supply to each of the three 
farms. At several distant points, large pits have been dug, which are sunk 
from 16 to 20 feet deep in the solid marl, without reaching bottom or show- 
ing any change of the lower of the two kinds of marl. The pits are work- 
ed quite dry ; but no marl having been dug for some time before my visit 
(May 1842) the pits were then all full of water to the brim, and there was 
but little opportunity to examine the marl, except at the upper edges, and 
in the heaps still remaining unspread over a part of one of the fields. 
However, Mr. Webb had before selected and kept for me, at my request, 
fair specimens in two large lumps of marl from one of the largest and 
deepest pits, from which my analyses were made. The one, a specimen of 
the upper 8 or 10 feet of depth, is full of large fragments of shells, gene- 
rally very soft and much decayed, and with very few whole shells, except 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 229 

those of the oyster kind. Below this stratum, the marl ;as shown by the 
sample) has no shells or considerable fragments, is of dark gray color and 
homogeneous texture, like coarse sand united in a mass by barely enough 
of clay to serve for that purpose. This apparent texture belongs to most 
of the Pamunkey marls, and is caused by the shelly matter being so pul- 
verized as to be in fact a coarse calcareous sand. The specimen of this 
lower stratum, of which 8 or 10 feet depth had been exposed, contained in 
100 grains, 35.50 of carbonate of lime; and the upper (shelly stratum) 35. 
The green-sand in both kinds appeared to be in less proportion than in the 
marl of the river bank at Northbury, and elsewhere along the river 
generally. Probably there was not more than 20 per cent, at mo.-t. The 
upper stratum, and larger part as used, of this marl, through a line of 
several miles in length, is very different in appearance from all the other 
marls seen on the river. And it must also be different in geological age or 
manner of original deposition, as the shells show much difference. Very 
few of the cardita planicosta were found in the heaps of marl, (which al- 
ways offer the best exhibition of shells for collection,) and those of very 
small size, and no saddle oysters. On the other hand, several shells were 
found, not observed by me at any other place ; and one of them, an oyster 
shell of large size, of remarkable and peculiar form, and in excellent pre- 
servation, is very abundant. Though various in form, as are all the ostrcas, 
this, or the more convex of its two valves, has a general peculiarity in a 
large and sharp hump on the back, and sometimes two such humps. Ano- 
ther ostrea, of which the shell is very thin and very convex, and the out- 
line of the valves nearly circular, is here abundant, and as large as two 
inches across. No specimen of the same had ever been seen by me, ex- 
cept perhaps a few at Newcastle of size so small that the identity was 
doubtful. The striking differences of kind and of proportions of the shells 
at Mr. Webb's more recent diggings would be highly interesting to any 
person possessing that knowledge of geology, and its auxiliary science, fossil 
conchology, to which I have no claim, and make no pretension. I have 
done, however, all in my power, to increase the facilities of future com- 
petent investigators, by collecting and preserving specimens for their 
examination. "My cabinet contains not only some of all the shells that I 
have found, or have been able to obtain from the several kinds of marl, but 
also specimens of all the marls of peculiar and marked character, with their 
localities accurately distinguished. And the time and the labor which 
I have given to making the collection, with opportunities possessed by but 
few other individuals^may thus serve greatly to advance the pursuits of 
scientific and truly competent investigators. 

In the river bank of Mr. Carter Braxton's farm, immediately above the 
Newcastle ferry, there commences a rapid decrease of the thickness of the 
calcareous or marl stratum proper, which is substituted by an equal in- 
crease or rising of the under-lying green-sand earth. A little above the 
ferry, the marl is at least 10 feet thick; at less than a mile above, the thick- 
ness of the marl is only 5 feet ; and at the next large exposure, on the 
adjacent farm of Mr. B. Tomlin, the marl is not more than 2 or 3 feet 
thick, over-lying green-sand earth marked with a few scattered and small 
shells, rising to nearly the full usual height of the marl, say 25 feet or more 
visible above the water. This was as far in regular connexion along the 
river as I personally examined ; but I learned that still higher, the calca- 
reous stratum almost ceases, the lower stratum of green-sand earth occupy- 
ing nearly the whole visible section. The lower stratum of the body at 
Spring Garden, Hanover, (Mr. William H. Roane's farm,) next above, is 
stated in Professor Rogers' Report as containing, in 100 parts— 

29 



230 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

Carbonate of lime 4 

Green-sand 46 

Gypsum •-. 3 

Silica and alumina 50 



100 
The next important locality of marl, and perhaps the most interesting, 
is South Wales. Hanover, the farm of Mr. William F. Wickham, and which 
is the highest point of its known existence. Here, as at the western ter- 
mination of the green-sand in Petersburg, the bottom is seen, the under-ly- 
ing stratum being gravelly sand mixed with rounded pebbles. This marl, 
as seen in several places where very large excavations had been made to 
marl both the South Wales and North Wales farms, differs altogether in 
appearance, and greatly in constitution, from all the kinds below. The 
bed is about 10 feet thick, is generally of uniform dark (nearly black) color, 
except for being intermixed throughout with large fragments of white 
shells. At one place, the upper stratum of the marl is yellow or pale 
reddish instead of black, but similar in the appearance of shells. Speci- 
mens of these marls carefully selected on the places in 1840, and analyzed, 
gave the following results : 

From South Wales, (William F. Wickham's land,) Hanover county, 
100 grains of upper stratum, yellowish, consisted of 

Carbonate of lime 36 

Silicious sand and green-sand together 47 — of which green-sand 

appeared to be one-tenth or ------ - 4.70 

and silicious (or quartz) sand - 42.30 

Yellow clay and loss - - - - - - - - 17 

* 100 grains blackish marl, lying below the last — 

Carbonate of lime --------- -44 

Green-sand 8 

100 grains similar to the last, from a different digging — 

Carbonate of lime 32.50 

Green-sand 22 

From North Wales, Caroline county, Williams Carter's land, 
100 grains of like blackish marl contained — 

Carbonate of lime .---....37 

Green-sand 24 

These specimens, which were supposed to present a fair average of the 
whole body, show an unusually large proportion of carbonate of lime for 
the Pamunkey eocene beds, and a less proportion of green-sand. To the 
happy combination of the two manures, I cannot but ascribe the remark- 
able success of Mr. Wickham in fertilizing his land. Still, he deems the 
green-sand ingredient of so little worth, compared to the calcareous, that he 
he would prefer that his marl should have had none of the former substance, 
provided an equal quantity of calcareous matter could be substituted. 

In a former publication, I have presented at length both the facts and 
my opinions of the peculiar operation of the green-sand marls of the Pamun- 
key.* It is therefore enough to say here, that the operation of this compound 
manure is greater than of any quantity of either one of the two enriching 
materials of which it is composed. In smaller quantity than is usually applied 
of calcareous marl, it produced equal or greater effect, and was more espe- 
cially beneficial to clover. The heaviest quantities also applied (as in the 
practice of Mr. Wickham,) caused no loss; though the like large quantities 

• See more full statements at pp. 679 to 691, vol. viii. Farmers' Register. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



l 23\ 



of merely calcareous marl would have been certainly either wasteful of the 
manure, or injurious to the land. 

Many specimens of these Pamunkey marls and of the lower-lying green- 
sand earth were subjected to a partial red heat, for the purpose of showing 
whether suffocating sulphureous fumes were disengaged, as was stated 
above (page 215 ) to be the case with some of the James river green-sand 
earth. The lower stratum (very slightly calcareous) of the Pamunkey 
marls, from Newcastle ferry, and at J. W. Tomlin's bank, gave out such 
fumes, but not so powerfully as the dark gypseous earth of Coggins Point. 
The next higher calcareous and green-sand .stratum of J. W. Tomlin's, and 
the same kind at Piping Tree ferry, and the blackish marl at South Wales, 
all yielded these strong fumes, but in a still less degree. Sundry other 
specimens of calcareous green-sand marl which were thus treated, yielded 
no fumes. The latter results were found in specimens from the several 
diggings at Newcastle, (both sides of the river,) and at G. W. Bassett's 
bank. It may not be useless to repeat here, and thus to place in connexion 
with these results, that all the dark green or blackish earth (/>) of Coggins 
Point gave out these suffocating fumes, and also the gray clay (E) below, 
and most powerfully — and that no such product was found from any of the 
very shelly bands. Thus it would seem that most generally the non-calcareous 
earths (or nearly non-calcareous) gave out fumes, and the calcareous not. 
But exceptions were found to both. And of the New Jersey green-sands, 
containing no carbonate of lime, six specimens were tried at red heat, of 
earths most esteemed for manure, and not the slightest disengagement of 
such fumes was produced.* 

Of green-sand as an ingredient of miocene marls. 

In a previous page, (199,) the presence of green-sand in miocene marls, 
as an important and general ingredient, was denied ; and the subject then 
passed by, with the promise of its being subsequently resumed. Having 
treated of the gypseous earth and of eocene green-sand marls, of both of 
which green-sand forms large and important proportions, it is now most 
appropriate to inquire into the alleged extent and operation of this sub- 
stance in miocene marls. 

In 1834, Professor William B. Rogers (then a resident of lower Virgi- 
nia) announced that he had discovered green-sand to be a considerable 
ingredient of nearly all the many ordinary miocene marls which he had 
examined either in place or by specimens; and from which observations he 
inferred the same admixture to be general as to other miocene marls ; and 
that the proportions of green-sand so contained were large enough to form 
useful additions to, and in some cases the most valuable portion of the ma- 
nuring ingredients of such marls, (Farmer's Register, vol. ii., p. 129.) At 
a later time, he added to like general opinions and statements the following : 
" In some of these deposites [marl beds in the vicinity of Williamsburg,] so 
large a proportion as thirty and in some specimens forty per cent, [of pure 
green-sand] has been found ; and in cases like this, if we are to trust to 
the experience of New Jersey, a very marked addition to the fertilizing 
power of marl must be ascribed to the presence of this ingredient." (Farm- 
er's Register, vol. ii., p. 747.) In a subsequent communication to the Phi- 

* The New Jersey "marls" thus tried were selected by the writer from the pifs of 
Josiah Heritage and Thomas Bee of Gloucester, and Henry Allen, Allen Wallace, J. 
Riley, and J. Cauley, Salem county. The same results were found as to the poorer (or less 
valued) overlying strata of Heritage, R. Dickenson. J. Cauley, and also of the barren 
green clay or subsoil. See all described in my report on the New Jersey green-sand earths, 
Farmers' Register, vol. x. p. 429. 



232 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

losophical Society of Philadelphia in 1835, and again in the first report 
of the geological survey of Virginia, the material parts of the above state- 
ments are re-asserted, in substance, and nearly in the same words. These 
statements and opinions were received, when announced, as undoubted, 
and they have not since been questioned in any publication ; nor have they 
since been either confirmed by any additional proof or testimony, nor have 
they in direct terms been modified or retracted by their author. Yet the 
correctness or incorrectness of the assertion of such abundance and general 
diffusion of green-sand in the miocene marls of Virginia is a matter of great 
interest — and, in its bearing on the application of marl and the rationale of 
its operation, of great importance to agricultural improvement. It is certain 
that to this day, many proprietors consider that their marls are peculiarly va- 
luable because of the supposed large proportions of green-sand therein — 
such opinions being founded either on the publications, or, with still more 
confidence, upon the personal examinations and verbally expressed opinions 
of the state geologist. 

My own personal examinations of marls in place, and analyses of speci- 
mens of other beds, have been very extensive ; and my attention has been 
given especially in regard to this point to sundry specimens, including 
several of the particular bodies of marl which it is understood that Pro- 
fessor Rogers had pronounced to be very rich in green-sand -containing, 
say, 20 to 30 per cent, of the black granules so called. I have found 
some green-sand (but generally in very small proportion,) in nearly all the 
specimens examined particularly for this substance ; and believe that Pro- 
fessor Rogers was correct so far as inferring that it is a very frequent 
ingredient. And for the first observation of this curious and interesting 
fact he is justly entitled to the entire credit. To such extent as green-sand 
is present, and according to the manner of the operation of that earth, 
(whatever that may be,) the green-sand in the miocene marls must be 
effective and useful. But whether such effect be of any distinguishable 
and appreciable value, or not, depends on the quantity and proportion of 
green-sand in the marl ; and, so far as all my experience and observation 
enable me to judge, I cannot but believe that the above stated estimates 
of quantities and proportions of green-sand are greatly exaggerated, 
and extremely incorrect and delusive. I do not mean to assert, and can- 
not be expected to prove, the negative of the assertion of such abundance 
of green-sand. But, from all my means for arriving at conclusions, it is 
my confident belief that but few of the bodies of miocene marls in Vir- 
ginia contain as much as 2 per cent, of green-sand — if even as much 
as 1 per cent. ; and that an average proportion, throughout any con- 
siderable digging for manure, of as much as 5 per cent, of green- 
sand is extremely rare. The largest proportion (estimated by the 
eye) that I ever found was supposed to be 5 per cent. ; and that was in a 
very peculiar marl, found at Coggins Point farm and elsewhere in that 
neighborhood, or rather a loose calcareous sand, which forms the over-lying 
layer of compact blue marl. This sand contains only about 20 per cent, 
of finely divided shelly matter, and the whole mass would appear, to slight ob- 
servation, similar to and as poor and as loose as the deep sands of the roads 
through a sandy country. But few persons would have used this sand for 
manure — or would have dignified it by the name of marl. However, the 
ease with which it could be worked, and the necessity for removing it to 
uncover the better marl below, induced me to carry out and apply it as a 
second dressing to an adjacent part of a field which had been just before 
marled. The effects were so marked, and so superior to the single marling, 
that I was ready to believe that the green-sand caused the difference. 
The loose calcareous sand mentioned at page 201, which one of my neigh- 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 233 

bors supposed (from its good effects) to be rich in calcareous earth, is pre- 
cisely like mine in general appearance, and in position in the bed; and 
appears to have a like unusually large proportion of green-sand, which no 
doubt served to produce part of the benefit which was ascribed wholly to the 
carbonate of lime. This peculiar deposire furnishes the only cases known to 
me of a miocene marl being rich enough in green-sand for the benefit from 
the latter to be known. And even this benefit would not have been distin- 
guished or suspected, but that the poverty of the earth in calcareous matter 
required it to be applied very heavily. The much thicker body of compact 
marl, lying under this poor calcareous sand, contains (by supposition) not 
so much as 2 per cent, of green-sand. 

But it is true, that when attention was not particularly directed to green- 
sand, proportions not exceeding 5 or 6 per cent, might have escaped the notice 
of one who had handled and examined the specimens of marl, or who even 
analyzed them, merely with a view to their proportions of calcareous matter. 
But proportions so large as 40, 30, or even 20 per cent, of green-sand could 
not thus escape even careless and superficial observation ; for even the 
smallest of these proportions would give a very manifest greenish or gray 
tint to any otherwise light-colored marl. Knowing the great uncertainty 
of the guessings at proportions of green-sand naturally intermixed with marl 
or other earth, I did not rely on them except as to the absence of any very 
large proportion. For more accurate testing, the clayey parts were washed 
off in water ; in others the calcareous parts were also removed by weak 
acid. And for still better means of judging by comparison, I mixed toge- 
ther, in different known proportions, measured quantities of light-colored 
marl (such as arc all those about Williamsburg,) and pure green sand pre- 
pared by washing some obtained from the richest beds in New Jersey. And 
of such artificial compounds, examined by the eye both when dry and in 
powder, and wet, and also after being again dried in mass, the admixture of 
green-sand, even when as small as 10 per cent., was obviously more abun- 
dant than in the miocene marls reputed to be among the richest in green- 
sand. Under these circumstances, without denying the possible existence 
of such cases, it is proper to wait for and to require further proof of such 
large proportions as 20 to 40 per cent. 

But there is much better support for my position, of the general scarcity 
of green-sand in miocene marls, than any proofs, positive or negative, that 
I can adduce, presented by Prof. Rogers himself in his ' Report of the pro- 
gress of the Geological Survey' for 1837. He therein gives a tabular state- 
ment of 148 specimens selected by his assistants, and their analyses made 
under his own direction. It is to be presumed that so many specimens, and 
thus obtained, must present a fair and correct average of general quality of 
the marls of the region in which they were found ; or at least that their con- 
tents would not be too little favorable to the geologist's preconceived opinions. 
The specimens were from 18 counties, viz. : Lancaster, Westmoreland, Rich- 
mond, Northumberland, King George, Mathews, Middlesex, Gloucester, 
King and Queen, King William, Essex, Isle of Wight, Nansemond, Elizabeth 
City, Surry, Prince George, James City, and Warwick. Of these 1 48 speci- 
mens, of one only (S. Downing's, Lancaster,) is the quantity or proportion 
of green-sand stated with any approach to precision. This is said to contain 
" 10 or 12 per cent, of green-sand," and only 17 per cent, of carbonate of 
lime. Of five others, the green-sand would seem to be in notable quantities, 
but as no numbers or proportions are named, it may be inferred that the 
proportions were deemed less than the one just stated. These five are 
described as follows, in regard to this ingredient : Callahan's, Lancaster, 
"large grains of green-sand in considerable quantity;" Gloucester Town, 
" richly specked with green-sand ;" Saunders', Isle of Wight, (one only of 



234 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



three strata,) "considerable green-sand." Stith's, Surry, ' : quite richly 
specked with green-sand." A. C. Jones', Surry, and at Kingsmill, James City, 
"intermixed with green-sand." Now what proportions these descriptions 
designate, it is not for me to determine ; but 3 or 4 per cent, at most, would 
abundantly serve to meet all their requisitions. There are also 7 other of the 
specimens named marked in less degrees by the presence of this ingredient, 
and which are described in this respect in such phrases as these : containing 
" a little green-sand"—" specked with green-sand"—" quite perceptibly 
specked with green-sand" — "tinged with green-sand"— and "slightly inter- 
mixed with green-sand." There remain of the list 135 other specimens, 
of which 48 are stated to contain of " green-sand a trace" (by which term 
chemists understand a proportion so small that its presence is barely cer- 
tain,) and of the other 87 specimens no green-sand is mentioned, and 
therefore it may be inferred that not even " a trace" could be found. 

If this list of marls and statements of their fertilizing contents had been 
presented by the author distinctly as a designed refutation of his previously 
and repeatedly published opinions of the frequent abundance and general 
presence in useful quantity of green-sand in miocene marls, nothing could 
have been more to the purpose, or more conclusive. 

Nevertheless, few and rare as may be the cases in which the value and 
beneficial effects of marls are increased in any considerable degree by the 
presence of green-sand, or of any other ingredient than carbonate of lime, 
it is important that such auxiliary fertilizing matters should be searched 
for, and their absence or presence known. The great value and uni- 
form fertilizing effects of carbonate of lime will be the most highly appre- 
ciated by those farmers who understand and estimate them separately 
and alone; without confounding the operation of that manuring earth with 
those of any other intermixed and unknown substances, no matter what 
increase of benefit such intermixture may produce in particular cases. 

KNOWN SHELLS OF THE MARLS OF LOWER VIRGINIA.* 



Miocene. 



Astarte undulata, Say. 

" concentrica, Conrad. 
" vicina, Say. 
Artemis acetabulum " 
Area incile, Say. 
" centenaria, Say. 
'• limula, Con. 
" idonea " 

Ballanus ? 

Buccinum porcinum, Say. 
" obsoletum " 
" laqueatum " 
" altile, Con. 
Cardium laqueatum, Con. 
" Virginianum " 
Chama congregata, Con. 

" corticosa, " 
Corbula cuneata, " 
" inequale, Say. 
Crassatella undulata, Say. 
Carditamera arata, Con. 
Cardita granulata, Say. 
Cytherea reposta, Con. 



Crepidula aculeata, Lamarck. 
" fornicata " 

Conus ? 

Dentalium thallus, Con. 
Dispotaea costata, Say. 
Fusus quadricostatus, Say. 
" cenereus " 

" exilis, Con. 

Fissurella, ? 

Fasciolaria mutabilis, Con. 
Gnathodon cuneatum, Gray. 
Isocardia rustica, Sowerby. 
Lucina divaricata, Lam. 

" contracta, Say. 

" anodonta, " 

" cribaria, " 

" squamosa, Lam. 
Lithodendron lineatus, Con. 
Murex umbrifer, Con. 
Mactra delumbis, " 

Marginella ? 

Natica heros, Say. 
" duplicata, Say. 



* I am indebted to my friend M . Tuomey for this list of the kiioum tertiary shells in 
my collection. There are also sundry other species or varieties which are doubtful or 
undetermined, and therefore are not here enumerated. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



235 



Ostrea Virginiana, Gmel. 
" subfalcata, Con. 

Oliva litterrata, Lam. 

Pandora crassidens. 

Panopjea reflexa, Say. 

Petricola centenaria, Con. 

Plicatula margmata, Say. 

Pecten Jeli'ersonius, Say. 
" Madisonius 
" seplemnarius " 
" decemnaiius, Con. 
" VirginianuB, Con. 



Cardita planicosta. 
Corbula Alabamienses, Lea, 

Crassatella ? 

Ostrea sellaeformis, Con. 
" compressirostra, Con. 



Pecten Clintonius, Say. 

" eboreus, Con. 
Pectunculus subovatus, Say. 
" pulvinatus, Lam. 

Perna maxillata, " 

Pleurotoma ? 

Serpula ? 

Teredo ? 

Turritella, 

Venus tridacnoides, Lam. 

" Rileyi, Con. 

" alveata, Con. 



Eocene. 



Pecten Lyelli, Lea. 
Panopaea oblongata, Con. 
Rostellaiia velata. " 
Turritella Mortoni. 



Erratum in Professor Shepard's letter, p. 222, line 39, for " nutritive," read mineral. 



NOTE V. 



THE EARLIEST KNOWN SUCCESSFUL APPLICATIONS OP FOSSIL SHELLS AS MANURE. 



The two old experiments described at page 70, though the only applica- 
tions of fossil shells known to me previous to the commencement of my use 
of this manure, were not all that had been made, and, which being deem- 
ed failures, had been abandoned and forgotten. Another, within a few 
miles of my residence, was brought to light and notice afterwards, by an 
old negro, who was perhaps the only person then living who had any 
knowledge of the facts. After I had found enough success in using this 
manure to attract to it some attention, Mr. Thomas Cocke of Aberdeen was 
one of those who began, but still with doubt and hesitation, to use marl 
to some considerable extent. One of his early applications was to his 
garden. The old gardener opposed this, and told his master that he knew 
" the stuff was good for nothing, because, when he was a boy, his old 
master (Mr. Cocke's father) had used some at Bonaccord, and it had never 
done the least good." Being asked whether he could show the spot where 
this trial had been made, he answered that he could easily, as he drove the 
cart which carried out the marl. The place was immediately sought. 
It was on the most elevated part of a very poor field, which had been clear- 
ed and exhausted fully a century before. The marled space (a square of 
about half an acre) though still poor, was at least twice as productive as 
the surrounding land, though a slight manuring from the farm-yard had 
been applied a kw years before to the surrounding land, and omitted on 
this spot, which was supposed, from its appearance, to have been the site 
of some former dwelling house and yard, of which every trace had 
disappeared except the permanent improvement of the soil usual from that 
cause. A close examination showed some fragments of the hardest shells 
remaining, so as to prove that the old man had not mistaken the spot. 
This, like other early applications, had been made on ground too poor for 
the marl to show but very slight early effect; and as only one kind of opera- 
tion of any manure was then thought of, (that which dung produces,) it is 
not strange that both the master and servant should have agreed in the 
opinion that the application was useless, and that all persons who knew of 



236 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

the application remained under that opinion until almost all remembrance of 
the experiment had been lost. 

Since the printing of the previous pages in which references were 
made to the earliest application of marl in Virginia, I have obtained some 
further information thereupon, which, however imperfect, may yet be 
interesting. In a recent conversation (1842) with William Short, esq., now 
of Philadelphia, the son of Major William Short who made the experiment, 
he told me that he well recollected when his father's first and acciden- 
tal discovery of marl was made on the Spring Garden farm in Surry, 
(in digging a ditch across a wet swamp,) and his sanguine and con- 
fident anticipations of deriving from its use great improvement and profit. 
Mr. Short further stated that he was then so young, and always so litttle 
acquainted with agriculture, that he did not know what were the precise 
facts in regard to the failure of his father's experiment and hopes ; but he 
well remembers that the result was deemed an entire failure, and that it 
caused total disappointment. 

Such a conclusion 1 had supposed before being so informed. I had also 
inferred, and no doubt correctly, that the supposed failure and truly slight 
benefit, and the mistaken deductions from the results, were such as have 
been stated. I have since written to the present proprietor of the land, 
Francis Ruffin, esq., to obtain the latest information concerning the results 
of this application, now some sixty-five years old ; and the most recent 
effects, as learned from him, will be here stated in connexion with the earlier, 
which will be repeated. 

It was before said (page 70) that this old marling (of about 10 acres) 
was done on poor sandy land, kept (as was the then universal course of 
tillage) under exhausting culture and close grazing for many years there- 
after ; that from 1812 the treatment had been lenient; and that in 1819, 
the superiority of the marled part was visible, and that part of the outline 
could be then distinctly traced. In 1834, Mr. F. Ruffin applied to this and 
some acres of adjoining land, pine leaves at the rate of 75 one-horse cart loads 
to the acre. The benefit from this vegetable cover was so much greater 
on the marled part, that the superior growth of the next crop of corn and 
of the succeeding crop of wheat, " marked out the limits of the old marling 
very conspicuously." The whole was sown in clover in the spring while 
under wheat ; that on the marled part lived and stood pretty well, while 
nearly every plant of clover on the part not marled died in the course of the 
year. In 1837, the whole field was marled, without excepting the old marl- 
ed part ; and the whole was again littered with pine leaves. The crops of 
corn and wheat since have shown less improvement from these applications 
on the piece thus re-marled, than on the adjoining land then marled for the 
first time. Indeed, the recent and additional increase of corn and wheat, 
since re-marling has been very little. These results, early and late, are pre- 
cisely such as might have been anticipated from the action of calcareous 
manures, and the condition of this land and its management. 

Another experiment of marling, made earlier than my first, by Mr. Rich- 
ard Hill, in King William county, has been heard of since the publication of 
the last edition, and of which the circumstances were given at length at 
pages 22 and 27 of vol. ix. Farmers' Register, to which the reader is 
referred. It is enough here to state, that the effects were beneficial at first ; 
but so injurious (because of the excessive quantity) on several succeeding 
crops, that this trial also was deemed a failure, and the marling a source of 
loss; and there was no repetition of marling in that neighborhood until 
about 1820, when other and better views began there to be first entertained. 

There was also successful and continued use of this manure in James 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



237 



City county, in Virginia, made earlier than mine; and still earlier by the 
Rev. John Singleton, in Talbot county, Maryland. It appears that the 
early (though chance-directed) combination of putrescent i with 

marl, in both these places, served to prove the value of the latter, and per- 
haps to prevent it being there also abandoned as worthless, as in the other 
cases. But though the application was continued, and with greal success 
and profit, the knowledge of these facts and the example extended very 
slowly; and the then want of communication among tanners kept all ig- 
norant of these practices for years, except in the immediate vicinity of the 
commencement of each. I have since endeavored to ascertain the time of 
the first applications in James City, and have been informed that it was in 
IS 16. Mr. Singleton's, in Maryland, were begun as early. His 

own account of his practice (which will be annexed, as an interesting state- 
ment of the earliest profitable use of this manure.) was first published in 
1818, in the 4th volume of the Memoirs of the Philadelphia Agricultural 
Society, (page 238.) The date of his letter is Dec. 31, 1817. My first ex- 
periment was made the following month, (Jan. 1818,) but more than a year 
before 1 met with Mr. Singleton's publication, or had heard of any applica- 
tion of fossil shells, except the two failures mentioned in page 70. But, 
however beneficial may have been found the operation of marl in Talbot 
and in James City, it is evident, from Mr. Singleton's letter, and from all 
other sources of information, that the moi ration remained altoge- 

ther unsuspected by those who used it ; and this was perhaps the principal 
cause why the practice was so slow in spreading. It is now [1S35] thirty 
years since the first proofs were exhibited on the land of Mr. Singleton ; 
yet, according to the report of the geological survey of the lower part of 
Maryland, (submitted to the legislature of Maryland at its recent session of 
1834-5,) it appears, though the value of marl is well understood, and 
much use of it made in Talbot county, and part of Queen Ann's county, 
yet that almost no use has been made of it on the other and much 
more extensive parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland — and none what- 
ever west of the Chesapeake in that state, where it is found in abundance. 
Such at least are the inferences from Mr. Ducatel's report, though in part 
drawn from indirect testimony, more than direct and particular assertions. 
The slight, and almost contemptuous manner, in which marl is mentioned 
by so well informed an agriculturist as Taylor, as late as 1814, when his 
Arator was published, (and which remained unaltered in his 3d edition of 
1817,) proves that almost nothing was then known of the value of this 
manure. All that seems to relate to our abundant deposites of fossil shells, 
or to marl generally, is contained in the two following passages : 

" Without new accessions of vegetable matter, successive heavy dress- 
ings with lime, gypsum, and even marl, have been frequently found to ter- 
minate in impoverishment. Hence it is inferred, that minerals operate as 
an excitement only to the manure furnished by the atmosphere. From this 
fact results the impossibility of removing an exhausted soil, by resorting to 
fossils, which will expel the poor remnant of life; and indeed it is hardly 
probable that divine wisdom has lodged in the hovels of the earth the manure 
necessary for its surface." — Arator, p. 52, 2cZ edition, Bui/.'. 

" Of lime and marl we have an abundance, but experience does not 
entitle me to say anything of either." — Id. p. 80. 

From the Rev. John Singleton, to the Hon. Wm. Tilghma 

" Your first question is, ' whether what I use be marl, or soil mixed with shells?' 
" Whether it be marl or not, I will not pretend to determine, as J have seen no de- 

30 



238 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

scription of marl that answers exactly to it ; but Mr. Tench Tilghman informed me he 
had seen a description ot marl used in Scotland, exactly similar to what I use on the farm 
on which I reside, and which is the improved land you mention. I have not seen the 
account myself. However, this, and all mixtures of broken marine shells, of which 
there is a great variety, are now denominated mar), here. What I consider the best, 
and which I most use, is composed of small parts of marine shells, chiefly scallop siiell, 
about one eighth of an inch square, or somewhat longer or smaller, with scarce any sand 
or soil with it : some of it seems to be petrified, and is dug up in lumps, like stone, 
from four or five, to forty or fifty pounds in weight, hard to break even with the edge of 
an axe, and will remain for years, tumbled about with the plough, before it is entirely 
broken to pieces, and mixed with the soil ; indeed you may observe it in some parts of 
the bank, where the soil has been washed from it, appearing like rock stone ; but if" 
broken and pulverized a little, it effervesces very much with acids. ***** 
" I have applied it to all the soils on my farm, some of which is a cold white clay, and 
wet ; others a light loam, and sandy. I find it useful to each kind, and manure my land 
all over with it, without distinction, and to advantage; putting a smaller quantity upon the 
looser soils. I have applied it as a top dressing on clover, and also where clover has not 
been sown, with a view to improving the grass, and also to be satisfied whether it would 
not be best for the ground, to let it he spread on the surface, for a year belbre the ground 
was put into cultivation. But it has not answered my expectation. I could not perceive 
any advantage from that mode of application. I now constantly apply it to the grouud 
cultivated in corn ; carting it out in the winter and spring, and putting on from twenty to 
forty cartloads per acre, according to the ground, and the previous quantity that had been 
put on, in former cultivations, dividing each load into from four to eight small heaps, for 
the greater ease in spreading, according to the size of the load. Some is put on before, 
and some after the ground is broken up, but it is all worked into the soil by the cultiva- 
tion of the corn, ana it never fails of considerably improving the crop ot corn, as also the 
ground wherever the marl is, especially in largest quantity. There is a small green moss, 
and black moist appearance, on the surface of the ground, when not cultivated ; as you 
perceive about old walls, and in strong ground. Though the preceding is the common 
mode in which 1 use the marl, I do not think it the best ; I mix some in my farm yard, 
with the farm yard and stable manure ; and would prefer mixing and applying all that I 
use thus mixed, but for the labor of double cartage which I cannot as yet. accomplish, 
manuring so largely as I do. I cultivate one hundred acres yearly, and constantly man- 
ure the whole of what I cultivate; employing only four carts, and four hands with the 
carts, which do all the manuring and carting on the farm. 

" Your next question is, 'what has been my rotation of crops, and mode of cultivating, 
since I have used this manure?' 

" Since I began to use the marl, and bend my attention to improvement by manure, I 
have cultivated only corn and wheat, sowing my ground in clover, and using the plaster. 
Instead of cultivating all ray ground in corn, and sowing wheat on it as heretofore, I 
divided my cultivation into two parts, of fifty acres each, putting one part into corn, 
which I was able to accomplish manuring time enough for the corn, and making a fallow 
of the other part, manuring as much of it as I could accomplish before the time for sow- 
ing wheat; and disregarding, in a degree, all smaller crops, which I could not attend to, 
as an object, without increasing my number of hands, and interfering with the main 
business. I went on in this manner, till I found I could easily accomplish manuring one 
hundred acres and upwards, per annum. Having got my ground to that state that I can 
risk making a crop without manure, I am now about discaiding fallow, being able to 
manure my whole hundred acres time enough lor cropping in the spring, by beginning to 
manure for the next year as soon as the spring manuring is finished. I shall in future 
have no wheat in fallow, but sow it after corn and other crops, from which I am satisfied 
I can make more from my ground than by naked fallow, which I always considered un- 
profitable, though you made more wheat, except for the advantage of having more time 
to manure. ** **** * * 

" In saving my corn crop, I cut it up without pulling it from the stalk as usual, and cart 
it in all togethei, then husk it out, leaving the husk to the stalk : I lay these near my 
feeding yard, and throw them into it twice a day : this gives us a large quantity of strong 
healthy food for the cattle, which serves them all winter, and keeps them in good condi- 
tion without any other food ; makes a large quantity of excellent manure, and a fine dry 
feeding yard. As opportunity can be found, we cart marl, fuller's earth, clay, and any 
trood soil that is convenient, into this yaid, which being mixed with the stalks, and 
straw, or any thing else, penning the cattle on it through the winter and summer, instead 
of penning on the field, in the common way, we have a large quantity of manure to go 
out in the fall, and next winter ; it is put into the field, in the intermediate rows, be- 
tween the rows of marl, as far as it will go, and they will get mixed in the cultivation. 
We also convert the scouring of our ditches, the head-lands of the fields, and all waste- 
ground that we can, into manure, by carting litter, from the woods, yard manure, or 



CALCAREOUS MANURES — \l L'EMHX. v>;><, 

litter, &c, aiul mixing with them ; so that I can nearly, or quite, now, accom- 
plish making farm-yard and this kind of manure, sufficient to go over my whole hundred 
acres, annually. For the two last years, I have made more manure than I could accom- 
plish or effect carrying out, though I have manured from ten to twenty acres more than 
my hundred, each year, with part marl and part farm-yard, hut not the whole with both, 
as I hope to be able to do in future ; but it will be necessary to increase my carting force 
to effect it, and 1 clearly see I can raise sufficient manure for the purpose ; heretofore I 
have manured my corn-ground, fifty acres, with marl, and my fallow with part farm-yard 
manure, and part marl, us mentioned before ; so that you will perceive the improvement 
made on my soil has not been elfected by marl alone, but in conjunction with farm-yard 
manure, clover and plaster, and by making it a point to manure with something all the 
ground I put into cultivation ; so that every time I cultivated a field, that field was im- 
proved, and not in any degree impoverished by the cultivation. JJy this means, and the 
Divine assistance, I have effected that improvement of my farm, which is so very strik- 
ing to the observation of every person acquainted with it. * * 

" In August, 1805, in digging down a bank on the side of a cove, for the purpose of 
making a causeway, I observed a shelly appearance, which it struck me might improve 
clay soil ; I took some of it immediately to the house, and putting it into a glass, with 
vinegar, found it effervesced very much ; this determined me to try it as a manure ; 
accordingly, in September, I carted out about eighty cart loads, and put it on a piece of 
ground, fallow, preparing for wheat, trying it in different proportions, at the rate of fiom 
twenty-seven to about a hundred loads per acre, and the ground was sown in wheat. I 
could not, myself, be satisfied that there was any difference through the winter and 
spring, although General Lloyd, who was viewing it with me in the spring, thought he 
could perceive some difference in favor of the marl ; but at harvest time, the wheat, 
though not more luxuriant in growth, or better head, was considerably thicker on the 
ground ; and after the wheat was taken off, the ground where the marl had been put 
was set with white clover, no clover being on the ground on either side of it. The next 
year, 1806, I discovered it in the drain into the head of the cove, which I immediately 
ditched, and from the ditch put out seven hundred loads, on the fallow ground. The 
effect, as to the wheat and clover, was the same, (this was put, for experiment, at the 
rate of from forty to a hundred and twenty cart loads per acre,) though the marl was not 
of the same kind as the other, but more mixed with sand and surface soil, being taken 
from the low ground, by ditching, and all mixed together. I also tried it on corn ground, 
spread out as above mentioned, and found the effect immediate, as to the corn ; and in 
the same manner as above described, as to the wheat sow u on the corn ground. This 
induced me to persevere in the use of it, which I have done ever since, adopting the 
mode I mentioned before, and putting it at first from forty to seventy loads per acre, till 
1 have now come down as low as eighteen or twenty loads per acre, going the third time 
over the ground with it. * * * * * * 



NOTE VI. 

FIRST VIEWS WHICH LEI) TO MARLING IN I'RINCE GEORGE COUNTY. 

{From the Farmers' Register, Nov., 1839.) 

Among the persons who have read with interest the -Essay on Calcareous 
Manures' and have received as sound the novel theory and doctrines there 
maintained, several have expressed their curiosity which had been excited 
to learn the earliest facts, or the train of reasoning, which led to the sug- 
gestion of the cause of the defect of naturally barren soils, and the remedy. 
Such inquiries have been made of the writer by poisons of investigating 
and well informed minds, but of very different education and pursuits; and 
they were pleased to say, in regard to the concise verbal answers made 
to their inquiries, that they deemed the details likely to he interesting to 
many, and that if given to the public, they might serve bettei to induce thfc 
consideration and enforcement of the doctrines, than had been done by the 
mere arguments which had been already published, convincing as they con- 
sidered the arguments to be. 



240 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

Though, without these reasons and solicitations, the writer might have 
still refrained from touching this subject, it was not that he had not held the 
same opinion, and, except in his own case, would have urged the same course. 
It is certain, that the tracing of the steps by which any new discovery or 
improvement is reached, must always be interesting in proportion to the 
admitted importance of the results; and indeed such a statement seems 
almost necessary to induce the reader to accompany the author from his first 
premises to the remote conclusion, and which otherwise is only reached 
through a devious and tedious passage, and by a course of reasoning which 
is wanting in interest, because the application and tendency of the argu- 
ments and proofs are not seen when they are first presented. The objection 
which restrained the writer from before pursuing a course which he would 
have highly approved in others, was, that such a narrative of opinions and 
facts would be entirely a personal narrative, and therefore obnoxious to the 
charge of egotism throughout. The statement of the reasoning which led 
to the successful use of fossil shells on the poor lands of lower Virginia, 
would be incomplete if not accompanied by a narrative of early labors, and 
the early as well as latest results and effects. In the whole of this, there 
would be scarcely any thing but statements of what the writer thought, and 
reasoned, and performed. But the subject must be so treated, or not at all ; 
and having consented to give the narrative, the writer will throw aside all 
scruples and objections, and endeavor to enter as much into detail, as he, 
if a reader of others' agricultural improvements and practical operations, 
would desire there to find. 

With the beginning of the year 1813, when barely nineteen years of age, 
the easy indulgence of my guardian gave to me the possession and direction 
of my property ; which consisted of the Coggins Point farm, with the neces- 
' sary and yet very insufficient stock of every kind. It is scarcely necessary 
to add that, at my very early commencement, I was totally ignorant of prac- 
tical agriculture ; and such would have been the case, according to the then 
and now usual want of training of farmers of Virginia, even if my farming 
labors had been postponed to a mature age. But I had always been fond of 
reading for amusement, and the few books on agriculture which I had met 
with had been studied, merely for the pleasure they afforded, at a still ear- 
lier time of my boyhood. The earliest known of these works was an 
English book, in four volumes, the 'Complete Body of Husbandry,' of which 
I have not seen the only known copy since I was fifteen years old. This 
work was probably a mere compilation, and of little value or authority ; but 
it gave me a fondness for agricultural studies, and filled my head with 
notions which were, even if proper in England, totally unsuitable to this 
country. ' Bordley's Husbandry' next fell into my hands, and its contents 
were as greedily devoured. This was indeed written in America, and by 
an American cultivator ; but as he drew almost all his notions from English 
writers, his work is essentially also of foreign materials. 

Thus prepared, I commenced fanning, ignorant indeed, but not in my 
own conceit. The agriculture of my neighborhood, like all that I had ever 
witnessed, was wretched in execution, and as erroneous as well could be in 
system, whether subjected to the test of sound doctrine, or the improper 
notions which I had formed from English writers. I was right in condemn- 
ing the general practice of my neighbors ; but decidedly mistaken in my 
self-satisfied estimate of my own better information and plans. 

Just about the time that my business as a cultivator was commenced, 
Col. John Taylor's 'Arator' was published; and never has any book on 
agriculture been received with so much enthusiastic applause, nor has any 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 21 1 

other had such wide-spread early effects in affecting opinion, and stimulating 
to exertion and attempts for improvement. The ground had before no occu- 
pant, and therefore this work had to contend with no rival. The larger 
land-owners, of lower Virginia especially, had previously treated their own 
proper employment, and their only source of income, with total neglect; and 
very few country gentlemen took any personal and regular direction of 
their farming operations. It was considered enough for them to hire over- 
seers, (and that class then was greatly inferior in grade and respectability to 
what it is now.) and to leave the daily superintendence to them entirely. 
The agricultural practices, and also the products, were consequently, and 
almost universally, at a very low ebb. The work of Taylor appeared when 
these evils had become manifest ; and it was received with a welcome which 
in warmth was proportioned to the magnitude of the evil, and to the exag- 
geration of the promises of speedy and effectual remedy which the author 
made, with entire good faith no doubt, but which proved any thing but 
true to the great majority of his sanguine followers. 

Of course, I was among the most enthusiastic admirers of ' Arator;' and 
not only received as sound and true every opinion and precept, but even 
went beyond the author's intention, (perhaps,) and applied his rules for 
tillage to lands of surface and soil altogether different from the level and 
originally rich sandy soils of the Rappahannock, where his labors and system 
had been so successful. However, this error was by no means confined 
to myself; for his other disciples fully as much misunderstood the directions, 
and misapplied the practices. 

It was my main object to enrich my then very poor land ; and for that, 
Taylor offered means that seemed to be sure and speedy. According to his 
views, it was only necessary to protect the arable land from all grazing, and 
thus let the vegetable cover of the land, when resting, serve as manure— to 
plough deep, and in ridges -to convert all the corn-stalks and other offal 
to manure, and plough it under, unrotted, for the corn— to put the farm 
under clover as fast as manured— and the desired result would be sure. I 
hoped at first to be able to manure, say 10 or 12 acres a year very heavily, 
with the barn-yard manure, and expected that such manuring would give 
a crop of 50 bushels of corn to the acre. The space, so enriched, when in 
the succeeding crop of wheat, would be laid under clover— and its acquired 
productiveness be made permanent, by the lenient rotation of two crops 
only taken from the land in four years. But utter disappointment followed. 
The manure was put on the poorest (and naturally poor) land ; and it 
produced very little of the expected effect in the first course of crops, and 
was scarcely to be perceived on the second. Clover could not be made to 
live on land of this kind ; and even on much better, or where more 
enriched, it was a very precarious crop, and which, where the growth was 
best, was certain to yield the entire occupancy of the ground to natural 
weeds after one year. The general non-grazing of the fields under grass, 
or rather under weeds, produced no visible enriching effect, and the 
ploughing of hilly land (as mine mostly was) into ridges, caused the most 
destructive washing away of the soil by heavy rains. These results were 
not speedily made manifest; and before being convinced of their certainty, 
I had labored for four or five years in using these means of supposed im- 
provement of the soil, but all of which proved either profitless, entirely 
useless, or absolutely and in some cases greatly injurious. And even after 
trying to avoid the first known errors, and using all other supposed means 
for giving durable and increasing fertility to my worn and poor fields, at 
the end of six years, instead of having already achieved great improve- 
ment, I was compelled to confess that no part of my poor land was more 



242 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

productive than when my labors commenced, and that on much of it, a 
ten-fold increase had been made of the previously large space of galled and 
gullied hill-sides and slopes. 

When more correct opinions had been formed in after-time of the actual 
condition and requirements of such poor soils, it seemed an astonishing delu- 
sion, which would have been altogether ludicrous but for its serious effects, 
that I should have counted so much on improving such a soil, and by such 
means. With the exception of a small part near the river banks, (perhaps 
one-fifth of the then cleared and cultivated land,) which had been originally 
of very fine quality, and, however abused and exhausted, was still good 
land, the farm generally consisted of a soil of sandy loam, usually about 
three inches deep, and through which a single-horse plough could easily 
penetrate and turn up the barren and more sandy subsoil. Grazing the 
fields, when not under tillage, had been the regular practice ; and under it 
very little growth was to be seen except the light and diminutive " hen's 
nest grass," which formed the almost universal cover of the poor fields of 
lower Virginia, in the intervals between tillage. Add to these circumstances 
of very poor and shallow soil, and barren and sandy subsoil, and almost 
no vegetable cover to turn under, that every field was more or less hilly, 
and liable to be washed by heavy rains— and the judicious reader will see 
nothing but false confidence and ignorance displayed in my bold adoption 
of Taylor's system. Nor was I convinced of my error until after nearly 
all the fields had been successively thrown into ridges by two-horse ploughs, 
and all the hilly and more slightly inclined surface had been awfully washed 
and gullied, by the exposure of the loose sub-soil to the action of the 
streams of rain-water. 

While these my supposed measures of improvement were in progress, 
i was in habits of frequent and familiar intercourse with my oldest and best 
friend, and former guardian, Thomas Cocke, who resided then on his Aber- 
deen farm, and since and now, on Tarbay, adjoining my own land. My 
friend was a man for whose mind and mental cultivation I could not but 
entertain a very high estimation. But though all his life a practical and 
assiduous cultivator, and finding his greatest pleasure in his farming labors, 
he yet was a careless, slovenly, and bad manager, and of course an un- 
profitable farmer. Therefore, on this subject, I held in but light esteem the 
opinions which he maintained, which were opposed to my own. One of 
these, (and which he had first gathered from some old and ignorant, but 
experienced practical cultivators of his neighborhood,) was the opinion that 
our land which was naturally poor could not " hold manure," to any extent 
or profit, and therefore could not be enriched. For years I heard this 
opinion frequently expressed by him, and the evident inference therefrom, 
that the far greater part of our lands, and of the whole country, was doomed 
to hopeless sterility ; and as often as heard, I rejected it as a monstrous 
agricultural heresy— as treason, indeed, to the authority of Taylor, and of 
every other author on agriculture whom I had read or heard of. But at 
last I was compelled, most reluctantly, to concur in this opinion. 

What was then to be done ] I could not bear the idea of pursuing the 
general system of the country in continuing to lessen the aheady small 
productiveness of my fields, by their course of cultivation. The whole 
income, and more, was required for the most economical support of a then 
small but fast growing family; and for any increase of income or net profit, 
there was no hope, save in the universal approved resort, in all such cases, 
of emigrating to the rich western wilderness. And accordingly such be- 
came my intention, fully consideied and decided upon, and which was only 
prevented being carried into effect by subsequent occurrences. 



UALCARKOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



243 



Just before this time Davy's 'Agricultural Chemistry' had been published 
in this country; and I read it with delight, notwithstanding my then total 
ignorance of chemical science, and even of chemical names, excepl as 
learned by that perusal. There was one passage of this author which .seemed 
to promise to afford both light and hope onthe poinl in which disappoint- 
ment had led me to despair. As an illustration of defects in the chemical 
constitution of soils, and of the remedies which proper investigation n 
point out, he adduced the fact of a soil "of good apparent texture," which 
was sterile, and seemed incapable of being enriched. The fact which struck 
so forcibly on my mind was presented in the following concise passage of 
Lect. iv. "If on washing [for analyzing] a sterile soil, it is found to contain 
the salt of iron, or any acid matter, it may be ameliorated by the applica- 
tion of quick-lime. A soil of good apparent texture from Lincolnshire, was 
put into my hands by Sir Joseph Banks as remarkable for sterility. On 
examining it, I found that it contained sulphate of iron ; and I offered the 
obvious remedy of top-dressing with lime, which converts the sulphate into 
a manure." 

Much the greater part of my land, and of all the land of lower Virginia, 
seemed to me just such as Davy descried in this single and peculiar soil. 
It was certainly of " good apparent texture," that is, it was neither much 
too clayey or too sandy, nor had it any other apparent defect to forbid its 
being fertile in a very high degree. Yet it was and always had been sterile, 
and, as my experience now concurred with that of my older friend in show- 
ing, it could not be either durably or profitably enriched by putrescent ma- 
nures. Could it be possible that the sulphate of iron (copperas; which Davy 
found in this soil, and which he evidently spoke of as a rare example of pe. 
culiar constitution, could exist in nineteen twentieths of all the lands of 
low T er Virginia 1 This could scarcely be ; and yet, in despair of finding other 
causes, I set about searching for this one. 

It was not difficult, even for a reader so little instructed in chemistry, to 
apply the test for copperas. It was only necessary to let a specimen of the 
suspected soil remain soaking in pure water, until any copperas, if present, 
would be dissolved; then to separate the fluid by pouring off and filtra- 
tion, and then to add to the fluid some of the infusion of nut galls. If 
copperas had been held in solution, the mixture would produce a true ink, 
of which the smallest proportion would be made visible in the before per- 
fectly transparent water But all these first attempts were fruitless, and I 
was obliged to conclude that the great defect, or impediment to improve- 
ment, in most of our soils, was not the presence of the salts of iron. But 
though not a salt, of which one of the component parts was an acid, might 
not the poisonous quality be a pure or uncombined acid? This question 
was raised in my mind, and the readiness produced to suppose the affirma- 
tive to be true, by several circumstances. These were, 1st, that certain 
plants known to contain acid, as sheep-sorrel and pine, preferred these soils, 
and indeed were almost confined to them, and grew there with luxuriance 
and vigor proportioned to the unfitness of the land for producing cultivated 
crops. 2nd. That of all the soils supposed to be acid which I examined by 
chemical tests, not one contained any calcareous earth.* 3rd. That the 
small proportion of my land, and of all within the range of my observation, 

* I was not then aware, of the important and novel fact which I afterwards ascertained 
and established, and which is now fully received (with very slight acknowledgment 
of its source) by the geologists of this country, that almost all the soils on the Atlantic 
slope of this country, and even including nearly all limestone soils, are also entirely de- 
stitute of carbonate of lime, though that ingredient seems nearly if not quite universal in 
all the good soils of England and the coutineat of Europi 



244 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

which was shelly, and of course calcareous, was entirely free from pine and 
sorrel, and moreover was as remarkable for great and lasting fertility, as 
the lands supposed to be acid for the reverse qualities. Shells, or lime, 
would necessarily combine with, and destroy, all the previous properties of 
any acid placed in contact ; and therefore, if acid were present universally, 
and acting as a poison to cultivated plants, it seemed plain enough why the 
shelly lands were free from this bad quality, and by its absence had been 
permitted to grow rich, and to continue productive. Every new observa- 
tion served to add strength to this notion ; and in our tide-water region 
generally, and even in my own neighborhood, there were plenty of subjects 
for observation and comparison, both in small shelly and fertile spots, and 
a vast extent of poor pine and sorrel-producing lands. Still, I could obtain 
no direct evidence of the presence of acid, either free or combined, by ap- 
plying chemical tests to soils, (as was tried in many cases,) nor was there 
any authority in my oracle, Davy's 'Agricultural Chemistry,' nor in any 
other work which I had read, for supposing vegetable acid to be present in 
any soil. Though Davy adds to the supposition of the presence of the 
" salt of iron," " or any acid matter," it is clear from the whole context that 
he had in view the possible and extremely rare presence of a mineral acid 
(as the sulphuric,) and not vegetable acid, which my views required, and my 
proofs were afterwards brought to maintain. Sulphuric acid is sometimes 
found in certain clays, and in combination with iron is also in peat soils ; 
but these factr have no application to ordinary soils of any country. Of 
course, this absence of authority would, to most inquirers, have seemed 
fatal to the position of an acid principle being generally present in the soils 
of Virginia, and in great quantity and power of injurious action. This 
was, indeed, a great obstacle opposed to the establishment of my newly- 
-•formed opinion ; but it was not yielded to as insuperable. Diffident as I 
then was of any such views of my own, and holding the dicta of Davy as 
the highest authority, and even his omission of any position as evidence 
that it was untrue, or unknown, still I was not daunted, and supposed it 
possible that the soils of this country might vary essentially in composition 
in this respect, from those of England ; or barely possible that even the 
great chemical philosopher might not have observed the presence of 
vegetable acid in the comparatively few cases of its existence in English 
soils. The later observations of subsequent years added much to my 
evidences of the existence of acid in soils ; and still later and scientific in- 
vestigations of chemists have served to establish that there is an acid 
principle in most soils, in the humic or geic acid. But these discoveries of 
chemists had not been published in 1817, (if indeed known to any) nor had 
my own observations reached to all the proofs which I afterwards (in 1832) 
published in the first edition (in book form) of the 'Essay on Calcareous 
Manures,' and which were still in advance of the publication of the now 
generally received opinions of the geic or humic acid. It must therefore, 
be confessed, that if I reached a correct conclusion, it was not on sufficiently 
established premises, and known chemical facts. However, reached it was, 
whether by right or by wrong reasoning ; and however little supported by 
direct proof or authority, I was almost sure, in advance of any known 
experiment, first, that the cause of the unproductiveness and unfitness for 
being enriched of most of our lands, was the presence of acid— and secondly, 
and consequently, that the application of lime, or calcareous earth, would, 
by taking up and destroying the poisonous principle, leave the soil free to 
receive and to profit by enriching manures. 

But even if this theoretical position had been demonstrated, still it might 
furnish no profitable practical remedy. For admitting that the application 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 245 

of calcareous matters would relieve the soil of its great evil, and make it 
capable of receiving subsequent improvement, yet after being so relieved, 
the land, I supposed, would be still as poor as before, and would require all 
the manure, labor and time necessary to enrich any very poor soil; and 
these might be so expensive, that the improvement of the land would cost 
more than it would afterwards be worth. These considerations served 
to lessen my estimation of the practical utility of the theoretical truth, and 
to make my earliest applications of the theory to practice hesitating, and 
very limited in extent. 

Having settled that calcareous matter was the medicine to be applied 
to the diseased or illy constituted soil, I was luckily at no loss to find the 
materials. In some of the many ravines which passed through my land, 
and on sundry parts of the river bank, were exposed some portions of the 
beds of fossil shells which underlie nearly all the eastern parts of Virginia and 
several other southern states ; the deposite which then had obtained in this 
region, though improperly, and still retains the name of marl. I began 
operations in February 1818, at one of the spots most accessible to a cart. 
The overlying earth was thrown off, and a few feet in width of the marl 
exposed, in which a pit was sunk to the depth of but three or four feet. 
When night stopped the digging and throwing out of the mail, the slowly 
oozing water filled the pit; and as no proper plan of draining had been 
adopted, the first shallow pit was abandoned, and another opened. In this 
laborious and wasteful manner there was as much marl obtained as I was 
then willing to apply. It served to give a covering of 125 to 200 bushels 
per acre, to 2-\ acres of new-ground. The wood on the land had been cut 
down three years before, and suffered to lie and rot until cleared up for 
cultivation in 1818. Though poor ridge land, and of what I deemed of 
the most acid class of soils, still the previous treatment had given to it so 
much decomposed vegetable matter, that its product would necessarily be 
made the best which such a soil was capable of bringing. And because 
of the superabundance of food for plants then ready to act, this was not a 
good subject to show the earliest and greatest benefit of neutralizing the 
acid. However — notwithstanding this circumstance, and the small amount 
and poverty of the marl, (which contained but one-third of calcareous 
matter,) the improvement produced was greater and more speedy in show- 
ing than I had dared to hope for. When the plants were but a few inches 
high, and before I had expected to see the slightest improvement, (indeed noue 
had been expected to show in the first year,) the superiority of the marled 
corn was manifest, and which continued to increase as the growth ad- 
vanced. My high gratification can only be appreciated by a schemer 
and projector ; but such a one can well imagine my feelings and sympa- 
thize in my triumph. The increase of the first crop, corn, I stated by guess, 
in reporting the experiment, to be fully 40 per cent., and that of the wheat 
which succeeded was much greater. Subsequent measurements of other 
products of experiments induced me to believe that I had under-rated the 
amount of increase in this first application. [This experiment is the first 
stated, and at length, at page 72 of ' Essay on Calcareous Manures,' 3d 
edition. Throughout this republished article, the references to the pages 
of the ' Essay on Calcareous Manures, will be changed from the previous to 
the present edition.] 

Great as had been the labor of this application, and small as its increased 
product, (comparing both with later operations,) the results served complete- 
ly to sustain my theoretical views, and also showed the remedy for the 
general evil to be far more quick, and more profitable, than I had 
counted on. Another person would probably have despised this small 

31 



246 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

increase to the acre, if supposing the effect to be but temporary ; and this 
all would have inferred, whether judging by comparison with all other 
manures known in practice, or even if by the authority of books. For the 
best informed of the old writers, (even Lord Karnes, for example,) while 
claiming for the effects of marl great durability, still consider that at some 
period, say 20 or 100 years, the effects are to cease. But my views were 
not limited within any practical experience, or authority, but by my own 
theory of the action ; and that theory taught me to infer that the benefit 
gained would never be lost, and that under proper cultivation, the increase 
of product would still more increase, instead of being lessened in the course 
of time. In thus fully confiding in the permanency of the improvement, 
I was at once convinced of the operation being both cheap and profitable. 
All doubt and hesitation were thrown aside, and I determined to increase 
my labors in marling to the utmost extent of my views. Still the want 
of spare labor, and the established routine of farm operations which 
occupied all the force, retarded my operations so much, that no more than 
12 more acres (for the next year's crop) were marled in that year. 

It forms an essential part of the character of an enthusiastic and suc- 
cessful projector, and especially an agricultural projector, to be as anxious 
to inform others as to profit himself. Of course I tried to bestow upon and 
share my lights with all my neighbors and other farmers whom my then 
secluded life permitted me to meet. This disposition also caused my earliest 
attempt at writing for even so small a portion of the public as constituted 
a little agricultural society of which I had induced the establishment in my 
neighborhood. To show my earliest opinions and statements on this sub- 
ject, I will here quote the material part of a communication made to that 
society, and which was written in October of the year of my first experi- 
ment in 1818. I copy the extract just as it then stood, and with all its 
defects of form and of substance. I then shrunk in fear from the greater 
publicity which the press would have afforded, and had not the remotest 
anticipation that my first effort, then made, would lead me to the extent of 
intercourse since established and maintained with the public, both by writ- 
ing and printing. 

" We should be induced to infer from the remarks of those writers who 
have treated on the improvement of land, that a soil artificially enriched is 
equally valuable with one which would produce the same amount of crop 
from its natural fertility ; and that a soil originally good, but impoverished 
by injudicious cultivation, is no better than if it never had been rich. If 
this conclusion be just (and the contrary has not been even hinted by them) 
it is in direct contradiction to the opinion of many intelligent practical farm- 
ers, with whom my own observations concur, in pronouncing that soils na- 
turally rich, (although completely worn out,) will sooner recover by rest — 
can be enriched with less manure— and will longer resist the effects of the 
severest course of cropping, than soils of as good apparent texture and 
constitution, and in similar situations, but poor before they were brought 
into cultivation. Should the latter opinion be correct, it is of the utmost 
importance that the subject should be investigated ; as the only conclusion 
that can be drawn from it is, that such land must have some secret defect 
in its constitution, some principle adverse to improvement ; and until this is 
discovered and corrected, it is an almost hopeless undertaking to make a 
barren country permanently fertile, by means of animal and vegetable 
manure. 

" That inclosing* has but little effect in improving land naturally barren, 

* The non-grazing system of Taylor. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPLv\DIX. 



247 



is sufficiently proved by poor wood-land. This has had the beneiit of inclos- 
ing for perhaps thousands of years, and is yet miserably poor. It may 
be said that leaves are not to be compared in value to grass or weeds; but 
surely leaves ought to improve as much in a thousand years, as grass or 
weeds in twenty. Besides, it is well known, that leaves taken from this 
very land, and applied elsewhere, have produced much benefit ; and the 
advocates of inclosing must agree with me in ascribing to this cause the 
natural fertility of the most valuable land. 

" As to manuring, there are but few farmers who have not, like me, expe- 
rienced complete disappointment in endeavoring to improve land so little 
favored by nature. In the usual method of summer manuring, by movable 
cow-pens, the most negligent farmers give the heaviest covering, by suffer- 
ing their pens to remain stationary sometimes six or eight weeks. I have 
known the surface in this manner to be covered an inch thick with the 
richest of manures, and yet, after going through the same course of crops 
and grazing with the adjoining unmanured land for six years, it could not be 
distinguished." * * * * * **** 

"If any one principle should be always found in one kind of soil, and as 
invariably absent in the other, we might reasonably infer that thai was the 
cause of fertility or barrenness. Judging from my very limited observa- 
tions, it appears evident that calcareous earth constitutes a part of every 
soil rich in its natural state, and that whenever a soil is entirely or nearly 
deficient, it never can become rich of itself, and if made so by heavy doses 
of dung, will soon relapse into its former sterility. 

" Let us observe how facts coincide with this opinion. The lower part 
of Virginia is generally poor ; narrow stripes along the rivers and smaller 
water courses are nearly all the high lands that are valuable, and in this 
class, exclusively, shells are seen so frequently, and in such abundance, that 
it seems highly probable that they are universally present, but so finely 
divided as not to be visible. When we know the change produced by cal- 
careous earth in the color and texture of soil, and in a field of an hundred 
acres, all of the same dark-colored mellow soil, shells may be seen in only 
a few detached spots, yet we cannot but attribute the same effects to the 
same cause, and allow calcareous matter to be present in every part. 

"The durable fertility of land which contains shells in abundance is so 
wonderful, that I should not dare to describe it, were not the facts supported 
by the best authority. The calcareous matter for ages has been collecting 
and fixing in the soil such an immense supply of vegetable matter, that near 
two centuries of almost continual exhaustion have not materially injured 
its value. I have seen fields on York, James, and Nansemond rivers, now 
extremely productive, which are said to have been under cultivation for 
thirty and forty years, without any aid worthy mentioning, from rest or 
manure. 

" The same cause operates on low lands, formed by alluvion, and situated 
on streams accustomed to overflow. Such land is, with very few exceptions, 
of the first quality ; and it is made so by the calcareous matter which the 
currents must necessarily convey from the strata of marl through which 
they pass ; and which being intimately mixed with sand, clay, and vegeta- 
ble matter, is sufficient to form the finest and deepest soil. All the rich low 
grounds which I have had an opportunity of observing, have marl on some 
of the streams which fall into them, and I have not heard of any on those 
few which are poor. Not a solitary instance of shells being found in poor 
land of any description has come to my knowlr I 

" If these premises are correct, no other conclusion can be drawn from 
them but that a proportion of calcareous earth gives to soil a capacity for 



248 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

improvement which it has not without ; and it also follows, that by an ap- 
plication of shell-marl, the worst land would be enabled to digest and retain 
that food, which has hitherto been of little or no advantage." * * 

" The property of fixing manures is not more important in marl, than 
that of destroying acids. The unproductiveness of our lands arises not so 
much from the absence of food as the presence of poison. We are so much 
accustomed to see a luxuriant and rapid growth of pines cover land on 
which no crop can thrive, that we cannot readily see the impropriety of 
calling such a soil absolutely barren. 

" From the circumstance of this soil being so congenial to the growth of 
pine and sorrel, (both of which are acid plants,) it seems probable that it 
abounds in acidity, or acid combinations, which, (although destructive to 
all valuable crops,) are their food while living, and product when dead. 
The most common forest trees are furnishing the earth with poison as libe- 
rally as food, while it depends entirely on the presence of the antidote, whe- 
ther one or the other takes effect. I have observed a very luxuriant growth 
of sorrel on land too poor to support vegetables of any kind, from green 
pine brush having been buried to stop gullies; and it is well known how 
much land on which pines have rotted is infested with this pernicious plant. 
Marl will immediately neutralize the acid, and this noxious principle being 
removed, the land will then for the first time yield according to its actual 
capacity. Sorrel will no longer be troublesome ; and, by a very heavy co- 
vering, I have known a spot rendered incapable of producing it, although 
the adjoining land was thickly set to the edge. Pines do not thrive on shelly 
land, whether fertile or exhausted. To this cause I attribute the great and 
immediate benefit I derived from marl on new-ground. The acid produced 
by the pine leaves is destroyed, and the soil is capable of supporting much 
■ heavier crops, without being (as yet) at all richer than it was."— Communi- 
cation to Prince George Agricultural Society. 

Before proceeding to state later experiments, and general practice and 
results, it will be necessary to recur to some other connected branches of 
the subject. The reader will pardon the apparent digression. 

So well established and general has the opinion now become that this 
marl is a manure, and a most valuable one, that it may seem strange that 
I should have only arrived at such an opinion indirectly, by the train of 
reasoning indicated above. There were hundreds of persons who after- 
wards said, "Oh! / never doubted that marl was a good manure;" but 
not one of whom had been induced to try its operation. But passing by 
these .postponing believers, and all others who confessedly nover attached 
any value to this great deposite, it may require explanation why I had not 
learned its value from English works which treat so extensively on marl, 
even though I had then had access to but few of them. It was precisely 
because I had read attentively some of the English accounts of marl that I 
was deterred from using our marl, which agreed with it (apparently) in 
nothing but name. Struck with the importance attached to marl in 
England, I had earnestly desired to find it, and had searched for it in vain, 
years before the early beginning of my farming. The name induced a 
close examination of what was called marl here ; but the " soapy feel," 
the absence of grit, the crumbling and melting of lumps in water, &c, • 
which were the most distinguishing characteristics of the marl of the 
English writers, were in vain looked for in our shell beds — of which the earth 
was generally sandy, never " soapy," and of which the lumps were often 
of almost stony hardness, and if not, at least showed nothing of the 
melting disposition of the English marls. I had before this found, however, 
in the American edition of the ' Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,' more modern 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



249 



and correct views of marl, and had thereby learned to prize calcareous 
matter in general as an ingredient of soil, whether natural or artificial. 
But still, even admitting that the shelly portion of our marl would slowly 
decompose, and gradually furnish some manure to the soil, still it seemed 
that there was little prospect of its operating as the English marl, of such 
very different texture and qualities. I then supposed that the shells which 
had resisted decomposition, even where exposed on the surface of the beds, 
for centuries, would be as slow to dissolve, and to act as manure if laid 
upon the fields. Still, notwithstanding these grounds of objection, the 
general idea of the value of calcareous manures would have induced me 
earlier to try fossil shells, but for being deterred therefrom by the only actual 
facts then known of the use. When speaking of my thought of trying 
marl to my friend Mr. Cocke, he told me that it was not worth the trouble; 
that he (attracted merely by the name,) had made several small applications, 
in 1803, on soils of different kinds, and that he had found almost no visible 
benefit ; and he had attached so little importance to the trial, that he had 
never thought to mention it, until induced by my remark. This com- 
munication was enough to check my then slight disposition to try marl. 
The old experiments of Mr. Cocke, as well as some much older, and, like 
his, considered worthless by the makers and almost forgotten, are stated 
at page 70 of this edition of ' Essay on Calcareous Manures.' 

As soon as I was satisfied that I had found in marl a remedy for the 
general and fixed disease of our poor lands, it became very desirable to 
know the strength of different beds, and of the different parts of the same 
bed. The rules of Davy for determining the proportion of carbonate of lime 
were easy to apply ; and having provided myself with the necessary tests 
and other means, I was soon enabled to analyze the specimens with ease 
and accuracy. This was a delightful and profitable direction of my very 
small amount of chemical acquirements, and served to stimulate to further 
study. The amount of knowledge was indeed very small— and is still so 
with all later acquirements added. But little as I had been enabled to learn 
of chemistry, the possession led me to adopt my views of the constitution 
of soils, and enabled me to double the product, and to much more than 
double the clear profit and pecuniary value of my land, in the course of a 
few years thereafter. 

Though my own doubts as to the propriety and profit of marling had 
been removed by my first experiments, it was not so with my neighbors. 
Small applications were indeed made by two of them only, in the next 
year after my first trial. But either because the land had been kept too 
much exhausted of its vegetable matter by grazing as well as by cropping, 
or because the experimenters could not think of the operation of the ma- 
nure as different from that of dung, or for both these reasons, it is certain 
that they were not encouraged by the results to persevere. They 
stopped marling with their first trial, until several years after, when 
both recommenced, then fully convinced of the benefit, and were af- 
terwards among the largest and most successful marlers. One of 
these persons was the late Edward Marks, of Old Town, and the other 
my old friend Thomas Cocke— who, though he had led me to find the dis- 
ease, could not be speedily convinced of its true nature, or of the value of 
the remedy. As late indeed as 1822, when he walked with me to an 
enormous excavation which I was then making in carrying out marl, he 
said to me, "In future time, if marling shall then have been abandoned 
as unprofitable, this place will probably be known by the name of ' Muffin's 
Folly.'' " For some years, my marling was a subject for ridicule with some 
of my neighbors ; and this was renewed, when in after-time the great 



250 CALCAREOUS MAJEURES— APPENDIX. 

damage caused by improper applications began to be seen, and which will 
be described in due order. 

Having had in view from the beginning the true action of marl, and fully- 
believing that its good effects would be permanent, and even increasing 
with time, under a proper system of tillage, I was no more discouraged by 
what some deemed small profits, than I was annoyed by the incredulity and 
ridicule of other persons. Almost all the farms in the neighborhood, except 
mine, were regularly and closely grazed when not under a crop, and of 
course they had not stored up in the soil much either of inert vegetable 
matter, or its acid product. Mine had hot been grazed since 1814, and 
had been rested two years in every four; and the poorest land three 
years in four. And though, in truth, no increased production had been 
obtained by this lenient treatment, inasmuch as the increase of acid coun- 
terbalanced the increase of vegetable food, still, when marl was applied, the 
acid was immediately destroyed, and the food left free to act. The effect 
of marling was generally shown most plainly on the first crop of corn, and 
the limits could be easily traced by the deep green color of the plants 
before they were five inches high ; and the increased product of the first 
crop on acid soils rarely fell under 50 per cent., was most generally 100, 
and has been known to be 200 per cent. But even such increase was not 
satisfactory to many persons, until the action of marl came to be better 
understood, and the permanency of the effects were credited. In five or 
six years after my commencement, there were few if any of those of my 
neighbors, who had marl visible on their lands, who had not begun to apply 
it. And though it has been injudiciously as well as insufficiently applied 
since, and not one-fourth of the full benefit obtained, still the general 
improvement and increased products of the marl farms of Prince George 
' have been very great. The existence of marl too, which was known at first 
but on a few farms in my own neighborhood, has been since discovered in 
many and remote parts of the county; and wherever accessible it is valued 
and used. The like observations will now apply to most of the other 
counties of lower Virginia. Wherever the effects of marling could be 
seen for a few years, the early incredulity not only disappeared, but most 
persons were even too ready to believe in marl possessing virtues to which 
it has no claim. Thus, ignorant or careless of its true mode of operation, 
they crop the marled lands more severely than before ; and if they are not 
thereby soon reduced as low as their former state of sterility, they are 
made to approach it as nearly as possible, and at a sacrifice of nine-tenths 
of the profit from marling which a more lenient and judicious system of 
cultivation would have insured. 

In 1819, the second year of my operations, my marling was increased to 
62 acres, but most of it at too thin a rate. In 1820, only 25 acres, though 
at 600 heaped bushels or even more to the acre. Up to this time I had 
done as most other persons have, that is, attempted to marl " at leisure 
times," and without making it a regular employment for a certain additional 
force, or reducing the amount of cultivation, or of other operations on the 
farm. No person will ever marl to much advantage who does not avoid 
this error; and this year's labors showed the necessity of an alteration. The 
next year, two horses and carts, with the necessary drivers and pit-men, 
were appropriated to marling at all times when weather permitted, except 
during harvest, thrashing, and wheat-sowing times. Viewing marling too 
as the most profitable operation, except the saving of a crop already made, 
it was made a fixed rule of the farm that marling was to be interrupted for 
nothing else. My corn shift for that year was reduced in size one half— so 
that one half could be marled while the other was under cultivation. By 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 251 

these means, I marled 80 acres this year, 1821, (and that much too heavily,) 
and had all the lessened corn-field on marled land. The product of the half 
was equal to what the whole had brought before, and 1 was enabled there- 
after to have every field marled over in advance of its next cultivation. In 
1822, the land marled was 93 acres, 100 in 1823, and 80 in 1821, which 
served to cover nearly all of the then cleared land requiring marling. The 
next three years' marling amounted respectively to 50 acres, 24 acres, and 
27 acres, being principally upon land subsequently cleared and brought into 
cultivation. Since then, there has been no marling on the farm, except on 
wood-land, not yet cleared, and on small spots formerly omitted, and of 
which no account was taken. With the exception of such spots, (and some 
such still remain, because of their inconvenient position,) all the land which 
was not naturally calcareous, or too wet or too steep for carting on, had 
been marled by 1827 ; and none has required any additional dose, though 
some of the thinnest covered places had been re-marled long before that 
time, so as to bring them to a proper constitution. 

In 1824, 1 first observed, (and had never before suspected such effect,) 
the injury caused by having marled acid soil too heavily. To show my first 
impressions, I will copy the words of my farm journal, written on the very 
day on which the discovery was fully made. 

"June 13th, 1824. Observed a new and alarming disease in a large pro- 
portion of my corn ; and, what makes the matter much worse, the evil is 
certainly caused by marling. The disease seems to have commenced when 
the corn was from 6 to 10 inches high, and to have stopped its growth. Its 
general color is a pale sickly green, and the leaves appear so thin as to be 
almost transparent : next they become streaked with rusty red, and then 
begin to die at the upper ends. Several pulled up, showed no defect, or 
injury from insects, among the roots. All the land marled from pits Nos. 7 
and 9 (both yellow) from 1820 to 1822, is so much diseased as to promise 
not more than half a crop. The corn is twice as large as on the spaces left 
for experiment without marl, yet looks much worse ; though three weeks 
ago its superiority in color and vigor was even more than in size. With 
but few exceptions, the land newly marled from the same pits, and the old 
marling from Nos. I and 8, (both blue,) as well as that not marled, are free 
from this disease. The parts most affected are those which were driest and 
poorest, and of course were least covered with vegetable matter. Yet 
though the corn on this old marling is generally so bad, it is yet evident that 
the land is more benefited by the manure than at first: flourishing stalks of 
corn, 18 to 24 inches high, are seen frequently within a few feet of those 
most hurt by this disease." 

Subsequently, when the whole extent of injury could be seen, the follow- 
ing remarks were written in the journal, at the date below. 

" October 15th. The damage caused by marl to this crop I suppose to be 
about one third of what the land would otherwise have made, judging from 
the present and former measurements of the same land, where experiments 
were made. 

" Nearly all the heavy marling in Finnies, (at 800 bushels,) about 20 
acres,* suffered by it ; the poorest and lightest most injured, here and in 
Court-House field. The few rich spots escaped, as did most of the piece 
plastered (on the heavy marling) in 1 820. The marks of this experiment 
were destroyed, and the superiority was not so regular as to enable me to 
trace the outlines of the gypseous earth— but an acre of corn might be 
taken which certainly was plastered, better than any other acre in the old 

* See Exp 10, p. 83, Essay on Cal. Man. 



252 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

land. This at least proves that gypsum contained [if any] in the marl has 
not caused the disease. The poor land, lightly marled in 1819, showed but 
little of the disease, and none was found in the piece not marled, nor in any 
marled since the last crop [or now first cultivated since being marled.] 

" In Court-House field the injury was confined to 19 acres, the poorest 
part of the field, which was in corn in 1821,* marled and fallowed, 1822, 
and in wheat 1823, corn 1824. The remainder of the old land, which had 
not been cropped so severely, and was covered as heavy with blue marl, 
brought a fine crop, quite free from the disease. The new ground was 
mostly marled very heavy (800 bushels of 45 per cent.)f and this and all my 
former clearings, (some marled equally heavy,) were also quite free. These 
facts satisfy me that it was not the quality, but the over quantity of marl 
which has caused the evil ; and that the land which has escaped, owes its 
safety to its containing more vegetable matter. I forgot to state that on 
some of the lightest spots of South Field the wheat was much injured, 
though blue marl was used there. 

"If I had followed my own advice to others, " to put no more marl at 
first than would but little more than neutralize the soil, and repeat the dress- 
ing afterwards," this evil would not have fallen on me. The present loss is 
not much ; but it makes me expect the same on all similar land, marled as 
heavily. I shall endeavor to avoid it, by giving vegetable matter to the soil ; 
either by manuring, or by allowing one or two more years of grass in the 
first term of the rotation. Why the quantity of marl applied should do harm 
in any case, is more than I can tell ; but I draw this consolation from the dis- 
covery—if a certain quantity, (say 500 bushels per acre,) is too much for 
present use of the soil, it proves that it will combine with more vegetable 
matter, and fix more fertility in the soil, than I had supposed. That the 
a second crop should be injured, and not the first, is owing to the unbroken 
state of the shells at first, and, by their being reduced, twice as much calca- 
reous matter is in action after a few years." 

Thus it will be seen, from these entries made at the time, that I took a 
correct view of this great and unlooked-for evil, and was by no means dis- 
couraged, or induced to lessen my efforts in marling. But in all after 
operations on poor land, the quantity was lessened from 500 and 600 
bushels, (and even more of the poorest marl,) to about 300 bushels. With 
this alteration, the operation was continued with as much zeal as before ; 
and also at a later time on another farm (Shellbanks) purchased afterwards, 
and where I marled upwards of 400 acres. 

When this injury was first discovered, about 250 acres of very similar 
land had been marled so heavily that the like mischief was to be looked for 
in the next crop, and thenceforward, if not guarded against. For a more 
full account of this disease, and my opinions thereon, I must refer to what 
has been before published.^: It is sufficient here to say that by pursuing the 
means there advised— in allowing more rest from grain crops, furnishing 
vegetable matter to the land, in its natural cover of weeds, in clover and 
farm-yard manure so far as the limited supply sufficed — that no very great 
loss was subsequently suffered, except in the field where the disease was 
first discovered, and which was marled in 1819. This field was too remote 
and inconveniently situated, to be manured from the barn-yard ; and from 
that and other causes, (including the failure of the first seeding of clover,) 
that field only still shows injury from marling in the present crop (1839;) 

* Exp. 11, p. 86. 

t Exp. 1 to 4, pp. 72 to 77. 

t Essay on Calcareous Manures, ante. 



CALCAREOUS MAM'KKS- APPENDIX. 



253 



so much diminished however, that its general average product this year 
is fully twice as much as the land could have brought before being marled. 
The results of many particular experiments made during the progress of 
marling this farm were stated in the ' Essay on Calcareous Manures,' and 
the general benefits and improved products were descrihed in a later 
publication.* It is not necessary here to repeat these statements. But as 
this article may come under the notice of some readers who have not 
access to the others, the general results, as produced in the whole period 
of twenty-two years, from the earliest experiment to the last product, will 
be here very concisely and generally staled. 

The many and extensive old galled parts of sloping land, wherever 
dressed with marl, and even without the further help of barn-yard manure, 
are now nearly all slcinned over by a newly formed soil ; and though such 
soil is still both poor and thin, and may yet long remain so, the ic/iole of its 
present productive power is due to marling ; as such galled land was before 
naked, entirely barren, and irreclaimable by other manures. "Where much 
or rich putrescent matter has been also applied to galls, with or after marl, 
both rich and durable soil has been formed, though at great cost. 

The more level parts of the old and greatly exhausted iields, and the 
newly cleared wood-land, (both kinds being naturally poor, thin, and acid 
soils,) are the only lands which have enjoyed any thing like the full bene- 
ficial effects of marling. These have been increased in product from 5 
and 10 bushels of corn per acre (which may be considered the usual 
minimum and maximum rates,) to at least 20, and in some cases to 30 
bushels, even without the aid of barn-yard manure. Where putrescent 
manures have been also applied, they have raised the products much 
higher ; and these manures are now as durable and as profitable as formerly 
they were fleeting and profitless in effect. 

The before poor and light soil which formed the greater part of the old 
arable lands, and which was not above three inches in depth, (and scarcely 
two inches when in its natural forest state,) is now seven inches or more, 
and requires three-horse ploughs to break it to proper depth, where the one- 
horse ploughs formerly would frequently reach and bring up the barren 
subsoil. 

The fertilizing operation of marl has increased with time, even where the 
effects were also the most speedy, and most profitable on the first crop after 
the application. 

The soil, which before was totally unable to support red clover, is now 
(except on the most sandy spots) well adapted to the growth, and capable, 
according to the grade of fertility, of receiving the great benefit which is 
offered by that most valuable of improving crops. 

And generally — notwithstanding all the many and great errors committed 
in my marling, (for want of experience,) and of still worse general farm 
management— and though a considerable proportion of the old land was 
either but little or not at all fit to be improved by marling— and though the 
land added since by new clearings was all very poor, and worthless for its 
natural producing power - still the general annual grain products of the 
farm have been increased from three to four-fold, and the net profit of culti- 
vation and the intrinsic value of the land have been increased in a still greater 
proportion. 

* See p. 112, vol. vii. of Farmers' Registei 



32 



254 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



Addendum, 1842. 

The following table of crops, with the annexed remarks and notes, will 
perhaps be more satisfactory than the preceding statements of general 
results, besides serving to bring the report down to the present time. 

It is proper to premise, that after 1827 I ceased to keep a regular farm 
journal, and neglected even to preserve accounts of the amount of crops. Ill 
health and other circumstances had caused me several years before that time 
to withdraw much of my personal attention from my farming. In 1830, my 
residence was permanently removed from the farm, and thereafter my 
superintendence was more and more withdrawn, until it ceased entirely 
at the end of 1838. Hence the blanks which will be seen in this part of 
the table. At the close of 1838, my eldest son became the part owner and 
occupant, and since has been sole director of the farm. Though it was 
then placed in charge of a new beginner, who had every thing to learn of 
farming, the management has since been much improved, and consequently 
also the condition and production of the farm, as shown by the table. 

The quantities and other facts, stated below, are taken from careful 
memoranda noted at the times of the occurrences, and are precise wherever 
presented as such, according to the best lights possessed by the cultivator. 
But the volume of my former journal, which embraced the transactions of 
1824 to 1827 inclusive, has been lost; and for want of recent reference to 
it, there may be some inaccuracy in the dates only of operations within that 
time, as well as in the next few succeeding years. 

TABLE OF CROPS ON COGGINS POINT FARM. 









a 






















a 




c '-> 


s 


'" . 










■a 




u m 


fcuj- 






60 — 








w a> 




S <u 


2 ri 






ta a 






5 




£ <D 


■a J3 




2, a 


13^3 


!r " 






a 

1813 


u 3 

< S 


31 




< a. 


125 


& — 
2250 








145 


810 


C 85 

°Ti~5 


18 




1814 




110 


550 


5 


163 


1340 


Q 3 






1815 




78 


520 


6#f 


136 


1955 


14 T3"V 






1816 




104 


896 


8iV* 


144 


2300 


16 






1817 




79 


595 


* 79 


188 


2050 


lft ,7 ° 






1818 


f 15 


63 


450 


7 9 
•F5" 


*160 


2670* 


lfil 1 






1819 


62 


132 


1015 


7 9 1 
' 1 3^ 


al37 


2000* 


14 JUL 






1820 


25 


119 


1020 


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ioe; 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



Explanatory remarks on the land audits management. 



255 



Quantity of land for cultivation (exclusive of waste parts,) at first, 472 acres ; in- 
creased by new clearings to 602 by 1826; to 652 in 1832 ; and no more in 1842 though 
30 more acres have since been cleared and tilled, because as much in 1836 converted to a 
permanent pasture. All the new la'nd added by clearing was poor, and very few acres 
of it would have produced more than 10 bushels of corn, or 5 of wheat (without the marl- 
ing) after the 3 or 4 first crops. Of course the new land added served to reduce instead 
of increasing the general average product per acre. 

Rotation at first of three-shifts, viz. : 1 corn, 2 wheat on the richer half, 3 at 
rest, and after 1814 not grazed. This changed gradually to 4 shifts (by 1823) of 1 corn, 
2 wheal, 3 and 4 at rest. 1820 began to fallow for wheat, in part and only in some year9. 
In 1826 or 1827 began to sow the wheat fields generally in clover, and about 1S35, to 
fallow a part (say one-fourth to one-third) of each clover field for wheat the year pre- 
ceding the crop of corn. This changed in 1840 to a five-shift rotation, one-fifth of the 
arable land being in corn, two-fifths in wheat (and oats) and two-fifths in clover, or other 
green or manuring crops. 

The crops of wheat for first six years (1813 to 1818) raised \)n the richer parts of each 
shift, making about one-half the land only; the other half being then much too poor to be 
sown. As these poorest parts were marled, all were sown in wheat, in their turn. 
Therefore, the earlier average products of wheat per acre as stated, were for the richest 
half of the land, while since 1822 the average is for the worst as well as the best land of 
each shift. 

Grazing the clover fields commenced partially about 1830, and increased since. Lat- 
terly about 20 head of cattle and 100 of hogs on the clover during the grazing season. 

The crops of hay, corn-fodder, 8tc, being all consumed on the farm, their products 
have not been estimated. 

Notes on particular crops, §c. 

a 1818 to '22 inclusive, 27 acres of rich embanked marsh in corn every year, which 
served to increase these crops, and their average — which land sunk too low after 1823 
for corn, and has since been under the tide. 

f In 1818, the first marling. 

1828, oats on 17 acres. 

1829 to 1830, a succession of bad seasons for wheat, or of crops — made much worse 
(as I afterwards believed,) by the land having been so long kept from being grazed and 
trodden by cattle. 

* These crops not actually measured, but amounts otherwise estimated. All other 
quantities measured, unless stated otherwise. 

§ The richer half of the shift only cultivated in corn this year (1821.) 

§§ Marling nearly extended over all the cleared arable land requiring it, and injurious 
where too thick. 

From 1825 to 1830 inclusive, the richest land of the farm kept under cotton, which 
served greatly to lessen the general products, and still more the average product per acre 
of the wheat crops, during that time. 

|| 13,027 lbs. of cotton, net weight as sold, or 170 lbs. to the acre. 

e 1836, the wheat crop nearly destroyed by rust, as was general through eastern Vir- 
ginia. 

t Corn crop of 1838 and wheat crop of 1839 very much lessened by the ravages of 
the chinch-bug. 

c, c, On 26 of these acres the marling was a second application. 

d The crops of oats being consumed on the farm, were never measured, but the quan- 
tities estimated by the land sown, at 20 bushels to the acre. 

e The root crops, (turnips and beets,) and pumpkins and cymblins, occupied part of 
the most highly enriched land — all consumed on the farm, and products not estimated. 

b The crop of corn of 1842 stated upon supposition, it not being half gathered when 
this article was prepared. 



256 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

NOTE VII. 
{From the Farmers' Register of Oct- 1835.) 

INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF THE FORMATION OF PRAIRIES, AND OF THE PECU- 
LIAR CONSTITUTION OF SOIL WHICH FAVORS OR PREVENTS THE DESTRUCTION 
OF THE GROWTH OF FORESTS. 

Introductory remarks. 

The views which will be presented in the following pages are in part 
founded on others which were maintained, and are considered as establish- 
ed in the 'Essay on Calcareous Manures'— as, for example, the doctrine of 
the existence and causes of acid and still more of neutral soils— the chemi- 
cal power of calcareous earth to combine with and to fix vegetable or other 
putrescent matter in soils— and that a certain proportion of lime, in some 
form, is essential to every productive soil, ami without which ingredient 
the land would be barren, and incapable of being enriched. As the repeti- 
tion here of the whole train of argument by which those doctrines were 
sustained would be both unnecessary and improper, it may be permitted 
merely to refer to the work named for these positions, as premises esta- 
blished, and either known, or accessible to every one who may feel inte- 
rest in the further extension and consideration of the same general sub- 
ject, which is here designed. 

The necessity of making frequent reference to a previous and avowed 
work, and also the having elsewhere stated the general purport of this, will 
prohibit the writer from presenting this continuation anonymously ; which 
otherwise would have been preferable, both on account of the writer's 
connexion with the journal in which this will appear, and because the sub- 
feet is one which will derive no support from its origin, being a matter of 
general argument resting on facts and authorities within the reach of every 
reader. But as these circumstances made it necessary that the piece 
should not be anonymous, for convenience the ordinary form of a com- 
munication to the Farmers' Register has been adopted. Whatever of oppo- 
sition to editorial usage may appear in these respects, it is hoped will be 
sufficiently accounted for, and held excused by the existing circumstances. 
However confident the writer may be of the main positions which he will 
aim to establish in the following pages, he is sensible that he is venturing 
upon a new field of investigation, which is as yet unexplored— and indeed 
almost untouched, except by those who have paid no attention to the pro- 
blem to be solved, or of others who, with better lights of science, have fallen 
into gross and manifest errors and mistakes. Under such circumstances, 
he cannot expect to avoid being misled in many particulars ; and he will 
be gratified at having such errors corrected, and the subject fully and 
properly treated by any other person possessing better means for receiving 
information, and pursuing this interesting subject of inquiry. 

General and erroneous opinions respecting the growth or absence of trees on 
land in a state of nature. 

There exists a wide-spread and strongly marked difference between the 
lands of different regions of the globe, in their being covered, or not, with 
trees, before being subjected to cultivation. But striking and strongly con- 
trasted as are these different aspects of parts of the earth's surface, and 
much as each kind, when a novel scene, has drawn forth expressions of 
wonder and admiration from travellers, the causes have not been sought — 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPEMU \ 



257 



indeed have scarcely attracted any attention. Yet, even if considered as 
a mere matter of curiosity, not likely to bring to light any thing of practi- 
cal use, there is scarcely one of Nature's riddles which would seem better 
calculated to interest philosophical, and especially agricultural investigators. 
These very different kinds of garb which are worn by different regions of 
the earth, extend over vast spaces, and of course are accompanied with 
many remarkable changes both of climate and soil. It follows that there 
are not many persons who have been accustomed to more than one of 
these conditions of the face of the earth ; and those who have been, were 
not of the class the best qualified for investigating the subject. The first 
European settlers of North America were, by the contrast to their native 
lands, the more forcibly impressed by the magnificent forests of which there 
seemed to be no end, and no change, except from the greater abundance 
of one luxuriant and gigantic growth to that of others. But this universal 
cover of the land, so different from any thing before known, was merely 
described with admiration by Europeans. No cause was sought for, or 
thought wanting ; and they remained content with most erroneously attri- 
buting the luxuriant growth of trees to the fertility of the soil, and the 
want of the labors of tillage.* 

The children of the early settlers grew up among forests, and they and 
their children, judging from all they saw, learned to consider that almost 
all soils, rich or poor, naturally would be covered by trees; and while 
falling into this error, they at least got rid of that of their forefathers, in con- 
necting the idea of a luxuriant forest growth with great fertility. When 
the spread of population finally brought the latter descendants to the borders 
of the Mississippi, and the great prairies of the west first opened to their 
astonished view, this change was as great as unaccountable, and yet the 
cause as little sought, as that of the universal forest state had been by the 
first emigrants from Europe. But ignorant wonder soon ceases, and leads 

* The words of the founder of Virginia, Capt. John Smith, show that the noble growth 
of trees which he and the other first European visiters found, gave them a very high and 
certainly mistaken opinion of the general fertility of Lower Virginia. " Within [the 
capes of Virginia,! ' s a countrey that may have the prerogative over the most pleasant 
places knowne, foi large and pleasant navigable rivers ; heaven and earth never agreed 
better to frame a place for man's habitation, were it fully manured ami inhabited by 
industrious people. Here are mountains, hils, plaines, valleyes, rivers, and brookes, all 
running most pleasantly into a faire bay, compassed, but for the mouth, with fruitful anil 

delightsome land." " The vesture of the earth in most places doth manifestly proue 

the nature of the soyl to be lusty and very rich. The colour of the earth we found in 
diverse places resembleth bole Armoniac, terra a sigillala, and Lemnia, fuller's earth, 
marie, and divers other such appearances. But generally for the most part it is a 
blacke sandy mould, and in some places a fat slimy clay, and in other places a very 
barren gravell. But the best ground is knowne by the vesture it beareth, as by the 
greatnesse of trees, or abundance of weeds, &c." " Virginia doth afford many ex- 
cellent vegetables, and living creatures, yet grasse there is little or none, but what grow- 
eth in low marishes : for all the countrey is overgrowne with trees, whose droppings 
continually turneth their grasse to weeds, by reason of the ranckness of the ground, 
which would soone be amended by good husbandry. The wood that is most common 
is oke and walnut, many of their okes are so tall and straight that they will beare two 

foote and a halfe square of good timber for 20 yards long." (Second Bootee of the / 

Travels, Mventvres, and Observations of Captaine lohn Smith, SfC. London, 1629.) Cap- 
tain Smith was altogether unskilled in agriculture, and it may be presumed that when 
he spoke of the need of such rich land being " fully manured," as well as inhabited, he 
meant nothing more than that it should be properly cultivated — of which, manuring was 
deemed a general and necessary part. But this accidental (and according to his views, 
erroneous) expression, was much nearer the truth than the opinion of fertility being 

f>roved by the " greatnesse of trees ;" for intich the greater part of the land bearing the 
argest and most magnificent growth of oaks, pines, and other common trees, was in 
truth poor then, and will ever remain so, without the application of calcareous matter 



258 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

to no profitable search for causes, or for truth. The children of the first 
settlers of the west have grown up among prairies ; and when another 
century shall have passed, and our frontier settlements shall have reached 
the base of the Rocky Mountains, it may begin to be believed there, that 
the forest state is rarely known to nature, and is only produced by the 
labors and care of man. So the Bedouin Arab thinks the world is made of 
naked sand — and the Shetlander's world is of wet peat. 

Of course these general remarks apply to those who are acquainted only 
with some one region of the world, and who have not been informed of 
others by books, any more than by travel. Among the more learned, there 
has been no lack of causes assigned for these opposite appearances ; but 
they are such as to show a strange disregard of all the requisites of sound 
reasoning, and of accurate investigation. Any reason that was first ad- 
vanced, however insufficient, however absurd, seems to have been readily 
admitted, and to have passed current from one traveller, or writer, to ano- 
ther. Thus, to the annual fires alone has been attributed the destruction 
of trees, and the formation of the great prairies of the west ; and this cause 
has been deemed sufficient by both the learned and the ignorant. The ob- 
jection to it is, that all the Atlantic slope was burned over as often as the 
west, before the settlement of the country, and in the former (at least east 
of the mountains) not one acre of prairie had been produced. 

Philosophical writers have maintained supposed causes of the destruction 
of the forests which formerly covered England, which are very plausible 
when considered alone. But precisely similar causes have been operating 
long and generally in this country, and our forests not only do not decay 
and die, but continue to defy every agent of injury, except the thorough use 
of the axe and plough. Even where long continued tillage has the most ef- 
fectually eradicated the natural and original forest growth, if the impover- 
ished land is merely let alone for thirty years, it will (in most cases) be 
better covered with a new growth of trees, than the utmost care could raise 
in England. Examples of the facts and reasoning referred to are presented 
in the following passage from Davy. "In instances where successive gene- 
rations of vegetables have grown upon a soil, unless part of their produce 
has been carried off by man, or consumed by animals, the vegetable matter 
increases in such a proportion, that the soil approaches to a peat in its 
nature ; and if in a situation where it can receive water from a higher dis- 
trict, it becomes spongy, and permeated with that fluid, and is gradually 
rendered incapable of supporting the nobler classes of vegetables. 

"Many peat-mosses seem to have been formed by the destruction of 
forests, in consequence of the imprudent use of the hatchet by the early 
cultivators of the country in which they exist : when the trees are felled in 
the out-skirts of the wood, those in the interior are exposed to the influence 
of the winds ; and having been accustomed to shelter, become unhealthy, 
and die in their new situation, and their leaves and branches, gradually de- 
composing, produce a stratum of vegetable matter. In many of the great 
bogs in Ireland and Scotland, the larger trees that are found in the out-skirts 
of them bear the marks of having been felled. In the interior, few entire 
trees are found ; and the cause is, probably, that they fell by gradual decay ; 
and that the fermentation and decomposition of the vegetable matter was 
most rapid where it was in the greatest quantity." — \_Lec. 4.] In Virginia 
no one forest tree has been known to die, or even to decline, from being 
exposed in the manner above described as so fatal : and such effects being 
produced in England would only prove that the soil was unfavorable to trees, 
and their life therefore feeble and sickly, and ready to yield to any new and 
considerable cause of injury. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



259 



The entire absence of trees for 900 miles across the Pampas between Bu- 
enos Ayres and the Andes, has been still more absurdly attributed to the 
winds (called pamperos) which often sweep across those wide plains with 
such violence, that no trees could withstand their power. I have seen in 
our forests where a hurricane had uprooted or broken off every tree of size 
in its course. But no wind could destroy the young and flexible under- 
wood ; and if such winds swept the same track every year, or every 
month, they would not prevent it being thickly covered with young sapling 
trees. 

The downs in England, which have not been tilled for hundreds of years, 
and are only valuable for sheep pasture, show no rising growth of trees. 
This is not held strange there, but would be supposed sufficiently account- 
ed for by the poverty of the soil, and the (supposed) impossibility of young 
trees growing, even if planted on open pasture land, without any care, and 
where they were always exposed to the attacks of live stock. But in 
Virginia, no degree of poverty, no exposure to grazing, will prevent untitled 
land growing up in wood. Annual fires, grazing animals, and poverty, 
wetness or sandiness of soil, all may prevent the growth of trees, as 
alleged in different countries ; but all these are but secondary causes which 
would have little or no effect, without the more powerful operation of some 
other and primary cause. This cause will be found in the peculiar constitu- 
tion of the soil; and I will proceed to state my reasons for believing that 
the cause of the different conditions of land as to being naturally covered 
with trees, or not so in general is merely the deficiency of lime in the soil, or 
its abundance— the former state being friendly to forest growth, and the 
latter being as unfriendly. Or — in terms so general as to cover all the ex- 
ceptions which will hereafter be admitted to the foregoing position— it may 
be stated, that the formation of prairies, &c, is caused by the existence of 
such circumstances as favor the groioth of grass in a far greater degree 
than the growth of trees — and of all such circumstances, the abundance of 
calcareous matter in the soil is the most efficient. 

In addressing readers residing in, or otherwise well acquainted with the 
Atlantic states, it is unnecessary to adduce facts to prove the general and 
strong disposition of the soil to produce trees, in vigor and luxuriance— to 
resist the labors of man for their destruction— and to return to the state of 
forest whenever tillage is intermitted. No unfilled land will long remain 
naked, or in grass ; and even under a regular rotation of crops, the labor of 
grubbing to destroy young trees is continually required on most lands, and 
particularly on those originally of inferior quality. Our poorest lands in 
lower Virginia, are generally covered with young pines in four or five years 
after being left without tillage, and their after-growth is as rapid and heavy 
as European timber growers would expect on the best lands, and with every 
care bestowed for that end. But it is not only to pines, (though that is the 
most striking case,) that this applies. In the higher and stiffer lands, where 
pines are rare, the springing of other young trees shows the same general 
tendency of the soil. If this tendency can be said to be feeble any where 
in lower Virginia (and it may be presumed that the same state of things ex- 
ists in all the Atlantic states,) it is on the few naturally rich soils on the 
rivers, some of which are the only lands naturally calcareous in the country, 
and all of which derived their natural fertility and permanent value from 
possessing lime in some form as an ingredient. In the ' Essay on Calcareous 
Manures' proofs have been exhibited of this supposed quality of such lands,* 
and therefore they will not be repeated here. It has also been maintaned 

• Part 1., chapter vii. — On neutral soils. 



260 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

in the same work, and the proofs exhibited at length, that in Virginia and 
the Atlantic states generally there are few soils containing naturally any 
portion whatever of carbonate of lime— and all the vast region which is so 
peculiarly constituted in being destitute of this ingredient, is precisely that 
which so strongly favors the growth of trees. 

Over all this great extent of country, we may suppose that the aboriginal 
inhabitants sent fires every year to aid their hunting. Indeed it would have 
been scarcely possible to avoid it, when almost the whole country was un- 
der one great forest, and the entire surface covered with dry leaves. For 
more than a century after the settlement of the present race of civilized in- 
habitants, fires passed over the wood-land almost every spring — caused 
either by the carelessness or design of hunters, or by the farmers to forward 
the growth of grass for their cattle. It required legal prohibitions, added to 
the general extension of tillage, and the great damage of burning fences, 
&c, to put a stop to this practice of burning the woods. Even in these 
latter times we hear of fires of tremendous fury sweeping hundreds of 
square miles in Maine, destroying timber, and every combustible matter on 
the few small farms in this yet wild region. Yet no where below the moun- 
tains, nor in any poor region, has the wood growth been destroyed— nor 
has an acre of prairie been thus formed, whether on land rich or poor. 
This is enough to prove that no violence or frequency of fires can destroy 
and keep down the growth of trees, unless aided by some other and more 
efficient agent. 

The most general cause of the absence of trees. 

The next position that will be assumed is, that most of the prairies, pam- 
-*pas, steppes and downs, which are bare of wood, though never tilled, are 
highly calcareous, and therefore unfriendly to the growth of trees. 

The proofs necessary to maintain such wide ground, directly and abso- 
lutely, would require more of time, and labor of investigation, than the la- 
bors and life of any one individual would suffice for ; therefore the facts that 
will be offered are considered only as specimens of the thousands which the 
world could furnish, and to be taken as fair samples of all, only while they 
remain uncontradicted by other opposing facts. No traveller having (to my 
knowledge) sought to learn or to report any particular information as to the 
constitution of such soils, or having attached any importance to the pre- 
sence or absence of calcareous ingredients, I have only been able to gather 
indirectly from their observations the scattered testimony which will be ad- 
duced. Unfortunately no traveller has been a scientific agriculturist ; and 
though many have been mineralogists, geologists, or chemists, they have 
given no attention to the constitution of the soils over which they passed, 
nor did any seem to consider that the composition of the soil had any bear- 
ing on its strange external features, which were the theme of their admira- 
tion. Dr. Clarke, distinguished as he deservedly was as a man of science, 
has told as little of the nature of the soil of the Russian steppes, as most of 
the least uninformed of the observers of our prairies. 

Proofs — derived from the general description of prairies, pampas, steppes, 4'c. 

Before entering more upon particulars, in addressing readers who are ge- 
nerally (like the writer) accustomed only to soils favorable to trees, it is pro- 
per to describe generally the features of the great regions which are bare of 
such growth, and which, under the different names of prairies, barrens, and 
savannas in North America, pampas in South America, and steppes in 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



261 



Russia and Tartary, form a very large portion of those parts of the globe- 
All of these, with various grades of fertility, and many points of difference 
in other respects, agree in being, or having been at some time when in a 
state of nature, bare of trees, or nearly so, and in being clothed with grass 
of greater or less luxuriance. 

The word " prairie" was first applied by the French colonists, and means, 
in their language, a meadow. The name therefore plainly enough designat- 
ed all land covered only with grass. The name of " barrens," so strangely 
applied in Kentucky to very rich lands, of this kind, was owing to the re- 
semblance of the dry grass on these lands to the broom grass which covers 
and grows luxuriantly on the naturally poor soils of lower Virginia, when 
left out of cultivation. This resemblance caused the surveyors who were 
sent to lay off the Virginia military lands, to reject these as barren soil, and 
the term then so erroneously applied to an extensive region, has still con- 
tinued to be used, and even has been extended to similar lands elsewhere. 

It will be most sure and satisfactory to use the language of the writers 
who have seen and described these regions, rather than to attempt a more 
general and condensed description, at the risk of changing the purport of 
their expressions. None of these writers, nor any that I have been able to 
consult, give any direct and positive testimony derived from analysis, as to 
the soil being supplied, or not, with calcareous ingredients. It is only from 
incidental observations of the nature of the rocky subsoil, the kinds of grass, 
&c, that any information of this kind has been indirectly gathered. All that 
can be said is, that such testimony, so far as it goes, is in favor of the calca- 
reous composition of such soils generally. Such expressions as most 
strongly (though indirectly) support my views of the constitution of prairie 
soils, or show a resemblance of one of these regions to some other better 
known, will be put in italics. 

The first extracts will be from the Views of Louisiana, by H. M. Breck- 
enridge, a writer intimately acquainted with the western country, and who 
describes what he had travelled over and seen. The Louisiana of which 
this work treats includes not only the state as now bounded, but all the vast 
region lying west of the Mississippi, formerly held under that general name 
by the French and Spanish governments. 

"This extensive portion of North America, has usually been described 
from the inconsiderable part which is occupied by the settlements, as though 
it were confined to the immediate borders of the Mississippi, as Egypt is to 
those of the Nile. By some, it is represented in general description as a 
low, flat region, abounding in swamps and subject to inundation ; which is 
the same thing as if the Netherlands should furnish a description for all the 
rest of Europe. Others speak of Louisiana as one vast forest of wilderness: 

" Missouri marches through the world of woods ;" 

which is far from being the case, for excepting on the banks of this river, 
and that not more than one-half its course, the country through which it 
passes is deplorably deficient in woods. If, then, we are to describe Lou- 
isiana, not from a small district, important because already the seat of 
population, but from the appearance of the whole, < in a general 

view, we should say, that it is an extensive region of open plains and mea- 
dows, interspersed loitk bare unti/lable hills, and with the exception of some 
fertile tracts in the vicinity of the great rivers by which it is traversed, re- 
sembling the grassy steppes of Tartary or the Saharas of Africa, but with- 
out the numerous morasses and dull uniformity of the one, or the dreary 
sterility of the other. The fertile tracts are chiefly to be found in the 



262 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

narrow valleys of the great rivers Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Red 
river, and some of their principal tributaries; the two largest bodies of 
fertile soil are the delta of the Mississippi, which is much interspersed with 
lakes, marshes, and sunken lands, that will require ages to reclaim, and the 
territory of the Missouri, as limited by the boundaries lately agreed on with 
the Indians, which bears a strong resemblance to the West Tennessee in 
some of its features." — pp. 66, 67. 

" A remarkable feature in this western side of the great valley [of the 
Mississippi] is its deficiency of wood, while the opposite (with the excep- 
tion of some parts on the north side of the Ohio, where the woods have been 
burnt,) is a close and deep forest. The woods continue for a short distance 
up the Mississippi before they disappear, and the grassy plains begin. The 
banks of the Missouri are clothed with luxuriant forest trees for three or 
four hundred miles, after which they gradually become bare, and the trees 
diminish in size ; at first we find thin groves of the kind of poplar called 
cotton wood, but of a diminutive growth, intermixed with willows; next 
the same tree, reduced to half its height, and resembling an orchard tree ; 
after this a thin border of shrubbery is almost the only ornament of the 
margin of the river. The same thing may be said of the Arkansas and 
Red river. 

" Taking the distance to the mountains to be about nine hundred miles, 
of the first two hundred, the larger proportion on the Missouri and its 
waters is well adapted to agricultural settlements, its soil and conveniences 
are equal if not superior to those of Tennessee or Illinois ; this tract will 
include the greater part of the White and Osage rivers, the lower Missouri, 
and for at least one hundred and fifty miles north of this last river. The 
proportion of wood gradually lessens to the west, and still more to the 
north, with the addition that the lands become of an inferior quality. For 
the next three hundred miles, the country will scarcely admit of compact 
settlements of any great extent; the wooded parts form trifling exceptions 
to its general surface, and are never met with but on the margin of the 
rivers. We may safely lay it down, that after the first two hundred miles, 
no trees are found on the uplands, save stinted pines or cedars ; the rest 
of the country consists of open plains of vast magnitude, stretching beyond 
the boundary of the eye, and chequered by numerous waving ridges, which 
enable the traveller to see his long wearisome journey of several days before 
him. Yet, it does not seem to me, that the soil of this tract is any where 
absolutely unproductive ; it is uniformly covered with herbage, though not 
long and luxuriant like that of the plants nearer the centre of the valley; 
it is short and close, but more nutritious to the wild herds, than the coarse 
grass of the common prairie. This tract has not the dreary barrenness 
described by Johnson in his Tour to the Hebrides , the green carpet which 
covers, and the beautiful shrubberies which adorn it, afford relief to the 
eye. But again, it is very doubtful whether trees could be cultivated ; for 
I observed that the trees which by accident are permitted to grow, are but 
dwarfs ; the oak for instance, is not larger than an orchard tree, the plumb 
is nothing more than a shrub, in some places not exceeding a currant bush. 
There are, however, scattered over the immense waste, a number of spots 
which greatly surpass in beauty any thing I have ever seen to the east of the 
Mississippi. But there are others, again, barren in the extreme, producing 
nothing in the best soil but hyssop and the prickly pear." — pp. 69, 71. 

" Thus it appears, that with the exception of a belt of one hundred and 
fifty, or two hundred miles in width, at most, stretching from the Missouri, 
in a line parallel with the course of the Mississippi, across the Arkansas and 
Red river to the Sabine, about twice the territory of New York, but not a 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 2'j3 

tenth part of the western section of the valley, the province of Louisiana is 
little better than a barren waste, and that the eastern side will always con- 
tain a much greater population." — p. 72. 

"This western region, it is certain, can never become agricultural; but it 
is in many respects highly favorable for the multiplication of flocks and 
herds. Those delightful spots, where the beauty and variety of the land- 
scape might challenge the fancy of the poet, invite to the pastoral life. 
How admirably adapted to the interesting little animal, the sheep, are those 
clean smooth meadows, of a surface so infinitely varied by hill and dale, 
covered with a short sweet grass, intermixed with thousands of the most 
beautiful flowers, undeformed by a single weed. 

"I confess that, to me, nature never wore an aspect so lovely as on the 
lonely plains of the west. From their dry and unsheltered surface, no 
damp and unwholesome vapors rise to lessen the elasticity of the air, or 
dim the brilliant blue of the heavens. So transparent is the atmosphere, 
that a slight smoke can be discerned at the distance of many miles, which 
curiously exercises the caution and sagacity of the fearful savage, ever on 
the watch to destroy, or to avoid destruction. And then, that sublime im- 
mensity which surrounds us; the sea in motion is a sublime object, but not 
to be compared to the varied scenes which here present themselves, and 
over which the body, as well as the imagination, is free to expatiate. The 
beams of the sun appeared to me to have less fierceness, or perhaps this 
might be owing to the cool breezes which continually fan the air, bringing 
upon their wings the odors of millions of flowers. The mind appears to 
receive a proportionate elevation, when we are thus lifted up so much 
higher than the centre of the valley. There was to me something like the 
fables of fairy land, in passing over a country where for hundreds of miles 
1 saw no inhabitants but the buffalo, deer, the elk, and antelope: I have 
called it the paradise of hunters, for to them it is indeed a paradise. There 
are, however, some important drawbacks on the advantages of this country, 
even considered as a pastoral district. To the north of the Missouri, rains 
are extremely rare, but when they are set in, pour down in torrents, while 
to the south their place is chiefly supplied by heavy dews. In the dry 
season, which is from the month of June until the latter end of September, 
at a distance from the great rivers, water is en/// where exceedingly scarce. 
The buffalo at this time leaves the plain and seeks the rivers, and the 
Indians in their excursions to any considerable distance are obliged to 
shape their courses by some known pond, and to carry besides a quantity 
of water in bladders. It is possible, that wells might be sunk, but it is cer- 
tain, that at this season one may travel for days without finding a drop of 
water ; one may frequently pass the beds of huge rivers which have disap- 
peared in the sands, but after rains, or on the melting of the snows, impass- 
able torrents are seen to fill their channels, and to roll down in turbid and 
frightful floods." — pp. 73, 75. 

"The tract of country north of the Missouri is less hilly than that on 
the south, but there is much greater proportion of prairie. It has a waving 
surface, varied by those dividing ridges of streams, which in Kentucky 
are called knobs. These prairies, it is well known, are caused by repeated 
and desolating fires, and the soil is extremely fertile. 

"The plains of Indiana and Illinois have been mostly produced by the 
same cause. They are very different from the savannas on the sea board, 
and the immense plains of the Upper Missouri. In the prairies of Indiana. 
I have been assured that the woods in places have been known to recede, 
and in others to increase, within the recollection of the old inhabitants. In 
moist places, the woods are still standing, the fire meeting there with obstruc 



2g4 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

tion. Trees, if planted in these prairies, would doubtless grow. In the 
islands, preserved by accidental causes, the progress of the fire can be traced ; 
the first burning would only scorch the outer bark of the tree ; this would 
render it more susceptible to the next, and the third would completely kill. 
I have seen in places, at present completely prairie, pieces of burnt trees, 
proving that the prairie had been caused by fire. The grass is usually very 
luxuriant, which is not the case in the plains of the Missouri. There may 
doubtless be spots where the' proportion of salts, or other bodies, may be 
such, as to favor the growth of grass only. 

" Such woods as remain are fine, but the quantity of adjoining prairie is 
usually too great. There are large tracts, however, admirably suited for 
settlements : a thousand acres or more of wood land, surrounded by as 
much of prairie. It is generally well watered with fine streams, and also 
interspersed with lakes. There is an extensive strip of land along this side 
of the Missouri, of nearly thirty miles in width, and about one hundred 
and fifty in length, altogether woods, and of excellent soil. An old gentle- 
man, who has seen Kentucky a wilderness, informed me that the appear- 
ance of this tract is similar, with the exception of its not being covered with 
cane, and a forest so dark and heavy. The "Forks of the Missouri" 
(such is the name given to the northern angle formed by the two great 
rivers) daily increases in reputation, and is settling faster than any part of 
the territory. 

" The Missouri bottoms, alternately appearing on one side or other of 
the river, we have already seen, are very fine for three hundred miles up, 
generally covered with heavy timber ; the greatest part of which is cotton 
wood of enormous size. The bottoms are usually about two miles in 
width, and entirely free from inundation. The bottoms of the Mississippi 
are equally extensive and rich, but not so well wooded. They are in fact 
a continued succession of the most beautiful prairies or meadows. The 
tract called Les Mamelles, from the circumstance of several mounds, 
bearing the appearance of art, projecting from the bluff some distance into 
the plain, may be worth describing as a specimen. It is about three miles 
from St. Charles ; I visited it last summer. To those who have never seen 
any of these prairies, it is very difficult to convey any just idea of them. 
Perhaps the comparison to the smooth green sea is the best. Ascending 
the mounds, I was elevated about one hundred feet above the plain ; I had a 
view of an immense plain below, and a distant prospect of hills. Every 
sense was delighted, and every faculty awakened. After gazing for an 
hour, I still continued to experience an unsatiated delight, in contemplating 
the rich and magnificent scene. To the right, the Missouri is concealed by 
a wood of no great width, extending to the Mississippi, the distance of ten 
miles. Before me, I could mark the course of the latter river, its banks 
without even a fringe of wood ; on the other side, the hills of the Illinois, 
faced with limestone, in bold masses of various hues, and the summits 
crowned with trees; pursuing these hills to the north, we see, at the distance 
of twenty miles, where the Illinois separates them, in his course to the Mis- 
sissippi. To the left, we behold the ocean of prairie, with islets at intervals. 
The whole extent perfectly level, covered with long waving grass, and at 
every moment changing color, from the shadows cast by the passing clouds. 
In some places there stands a solitary tree of cotton wood or walnut, of 
enormous size, but from the distance diminished to a shrub. A hundred 
thousand acres of the finest land are under the eye at once, and yet, on all 
this space, there is but one little cultivated spot to be seen." — pp. 204,206. 

" Nothing else was visible — not a deer, not a tree— all was prairie 

— a wide unbroken sea of green — where hollow succeeded hollow, and the 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. £65 

long grass waved on the hills with a heavy surf-like motion, until at last it 
was blended with the hazy atmosphere, which met the horizon. The power 
of sight was shut out by nothing ; it had its full scope, and we gazed around 
until our eyes ached with the very vastness of the view that lay before 
them. There waa a degree of pain, of loneliness, in the scene. A tree 
would have been a companion, a friend. It would have taken away the 
very desolation which hung round us, and would have thrown an air of 
sociability over the face of nature ; but there were none. The annual fires 
which sweep over the whole face of the country during the autumn of every 
year, effectually destroy every thing of the kind. There will be no forest 
as long as the Indians possess these regions; for every year, when the 
season of hunting arrives, they set fire to the long dry grass. Once fairly 
on its errand, the destructive messenger speeds onward, licking up every 
blade and every bush ; until some strip of timber, whose tall trees protect 
the shrubbery, by the dampness which they diffuse beneath, or some 
stream, stops it in its desolating path. 

" The object of burning the grass is to drive the deer and elk that are 
roving over the broad extent of the prairies, into the small groves of tim- 
ber scattered over the surface. Once enclosed within these thickets, they 
fall an easy prey to the hunters." — Irving 's Indian Sketches, 1835. 

The next extracts are from an article in Silliman's Journal, by W. W. 
McGuire, on the prairies of Alabama. 

" In speaking of the prairies, the rock formation claims particular atten- 
tion. It is uniformly found below the prairie soil, at various depths, 
ranging from ten to fifteen feet, and it sometimes projects above the ground. 
This rock is generally known by the name of rotten limestone ; when re- 
moved for several feet on the top, and exposed to the action of the atmo- 
sphere for some time, it assumes a beautiful white color. In its soft state it 
is easily quarried, and blocks of almost any dimensions can be procured. 
It has been dressed by planes and other instruments, and used in building 
chimneys, some of which have stood twelve or fifteen years without injury 
or decay. A summer's seasoning is requisite to fit it for building. This 
rock has been penetrated by boring to depths varying from one hundred to 
five hundred and fifty feet; after the first six or seven feet, it is of a bluish 
or gray color, but still soft except in a few instances, where flint strata of a 
foot thick or more have been met with. On perforating the rock, a full 
supply of good water is always obtained, which uniformly flows over the 
top. I have heard of no constant running stream of water over this rock, 
except one in Pickens county, near the lower line. The superincumbent 
earth is for a few feet composed principally of stiff clay, of whitish color; 
then comes the mould of soil, which is very black— in wet weather it is 
extremely miry and stiff, and in dry, very hard and compact. 

"Shells, such as the oyster, muscle, periwinkle, and. some other kinds, are 
found in great quantities throughout almost all the prairies of Alabama and 
Mississippi ; the first named being the most numerous, mixed in every pro- 
portion with the others. The oyster shells are perfectly similar to those 
now obtained from the oyster banks on the shores of the Atlantic. The 
largest beds of shells in the open prairies seem to occupy rather elevated, 
but not the highest places. They have probably been removed from the 
more elevated situations by torrents of rain. It may be that the lowest 
places never contained any shells; or if they did, as vegetable matter ac- 
cumulates in greater quantities in low situations, they may have been thus 
covered. In some instances I believe they have been found in such places, 
several feet below the surface. They are not found in very large quanti- 
ties in the timbered prairies ; and indeed, so far as I have observed, where- 



266 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



ever the shells are numerous, vegetation is not so luxuriant as where there 
is a proper admixture of the decomposed or decomposing shells and vege- 
table matter. 

"These shells and other decomposing materials appear to have given a 
peculiar character to the prairie soil, which causes it to adhere so strongly 
to the legs of horses and to the wheels of carriages as to remain several 
days in travelling, unless washed or beaten off. Yet, when well broken up. 
at the proper season, and regularly ploughed, it remains quite mellow, 
producing corn and cotton equal to the best alluvial bottoms, with, so far as 
it has been tried, increased fertility; although, from the compact nature of 
the rock beneath, and the tenacity with which it retains moisture, crops are 
injured sometimes by rains, but seldom by drought. 

" There being no opening or fissures, except above the rock, by which to 
convey the water directly to the channel of creeks and rivers, there are 
consequently no reservoirs to contain supplies for fountains and springs. In 
the winter and spring seasons the streams overflow and the land is literally 
submerged. In the summer and autumn neither springs nor wells are to be 
found, except below the rock ; yet, notwithstanding this scarcity of water, 
there is seldom a lack of moisture for the purpose of vegetation. And at 
times when the drought is such as to produce fissures two or three inches 
wide, and as many feet deep, the earth will be found quite moist at the depth 
of two or three inches. 

" There are open prairies of every size, from one hundred to one thousand 
or twelve hundred acres, mixed and interspersed in every form and mode 
with timbered land of all kinds ; some producing only black-jack and post 
oak, not exceeding fifteen or twenty feet in height ; others again covered 
with the most majestic oak, poplar, elm, hickory, walnut, pacaun, hackberry, 
^grape-vine and cane, equal in size and beauty, I understand, to similar kinds 
in the Mississippi alluvions. 

" The extent of this country may not be unimportant. I am informed 
that traces of prairie soil may be seen in Georgia, perhaps as far east as Mil- 
ledgeville. It is indeed said to exist in North Carolina ; but of this I have 
not evidence such as to warrant the assertion. That it stretches nearly 
five hundred miles eastward from the vicinity of the Mississippi on the west 
almost to Milledgeville, there is no doubt ; and if it extends, as is said to be 
the fact, to North Carolina, it reaches four hundred or five hundred miles 
farther, being perhaps nine hundred or one thousand miles long, and from 
forty to sixty in breadth." 

In addition to the foregoing extracts, several communications to the 
Farmers' Register, (which are before its readers.) confirm these statements, 
and (independent of the aid of chemical analysis, which will be referred to 
hereafter,) show that the prairie soils of Alabama generally are intermixed 
with calcareous earth, and universally underlaid with that substance in a 
much more pure form, yet soft enough to be penetrated by roots.* The 
letter of N. D. Smith, Esq., in the last number gives a like account of the under- 
lying stratum of the prairies of Arkansas. Such is also the account of Mr. 
Featherstonhaugh in his geological report of that region— and in addition to 
the calcareous character of the underlying soft rock, he speaks (though not 
in very definite terms) of the black rich soil above, as being substantially 
calcareous."! Another similar fact in a remote locality, has recently been 
published. A tract of prairie land in the northwest part of Pennsylvania, 

* See Farm. Reg. pp. 276, 277. 367, of vol. i.— and pp. 637, 716, 717, vol. ii, and 
p. 140, Essay on Calcareoous Manures. 

t See extract from the report at page 147, vol. iii. Farm. Rpg. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX 



267 



lies on calcareous earth, so pure as to be converted, by being burnt, to 
lime of the best quality. This earth reaches to within a foot of the 
surface.* 

The next extracts present sufficient ground for considering the steppes 
and prairies as belonging to the same class. 

" In all parts of the river [Don] above Knsankaia, it seems tofiovj over a 
bed of chalk ; and its banks, gently swelling upwards from the water, rise 
like the South Downs of Sussex ; often disclosing the chalk, of which they 
consist. Farther down, and near the water's edge, low copses of wood al- 
most always accompany its course ; but they diminish as it draws nearer 
to Tscherchaskoy, the inhabitants of which town derive all their wood from 
the Volga. 

" As soon as we left Kasankaia, we entered the steppes in good earnest, 
with a view to traverse their whole extent to Tscherchaskoy. These aro 
not cultivated ; yet, bleak and desolate as their appearance during winter 
must be, they have in summer the aspect of a wild continued meadow. 
The herbage rises as high as the knee, full of flowers, and exhibiting a most 
interesting collection of plants. No one collects or cuts this herbage. The 
soil, though neglected, is very fine. We passed some oaks in the first part 
of our journey, which had the largest leaves I ever saw." — Clark's Travels 
in Russia, p. 189. 

" Leaving this encampment, we continued traversing the steppes in a 
south-westerly direction, and passed a very neat village belonging to a rich 
Greek, who, to our great surprise, had established a residence in the midst of 
these desolate plains. As we advanced, we perceived that wherever rivers 
intersect the steppes, there are villages, and plenty of inhabitants. A manu- 
script map at Tscherchaskoy confirmed the truth of this observation. No 
maps have been hitherto published in Europe which give an accurate notion 
of the country. A stranger crossing the Cossack territory, might suppose 
himself in a desert, and yet be in the midst of villages. The road, it is true, 
does not often disclose them ; but frequently, when we were crossing a 
river, and believed ourselves in the midst of the most uninhabited country, 
which might be compared to a boundless meadow, we beheld villages to the 
right and left of us, concealed, by the depth of the banks of the river, 
below the level of the plain ; not a single house or church of which 
would have been otherwise discerned."— p. 198. 

" From Acenovkaia, we continued our route over steppes apparently des- 
titute of any habitation. Dromedaries were feeding, as if sole tenants of 
these wide pastures."— p. 199. 

Dr. Clarke, though traversing a vast extent of steppes, says very little 
more of them than is presented in the short quotations above. They give 
a clear though indirect indication of their chalky formation, and similarity 
to the downs of Sussex in England. Yet the author seems to have attached 
no importance to these facts, nor does he take any other notice, direct or 
indirect, of the nature, or chemical composition of the soil. Yet, in addi- 
tion ti his scientific attainments as a chemist and mineralogist, his botanical 
knowledge, if properly applied, would have thrown much light on this sub- 
ject. I have no doubt but hereafter the character of soils, as to possessing 
calcareous matter abundantly, or being destitute of that ingredient, will be 
determined with certainly by the presence or absence of many different 
plants. Dr. Clarke gives a catalogue of many of the plants observed in 
his journey, and of them a few are stated to have been found on the steppes. 

* See Farmers' Register, page 169, vol. iii. 



268 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

These are copied below,* that others who have some knowledge of botany, 
may be able to state whether these plants are confined to calcareous soils or 
not. If the author had stated that sheep sorrel was a common growth of 
the steppes, I would at once admit, from that solitary fact, that the soil must 
be destitute of calcareous earth. In like manner, if the soil is highly calca- 
reous, some of the plants which he observed there, or which may be found 
on the prairies, would afford as certain proof of that fact, as the presence of 
sorrel would of the reverse. These suggestions are thrown out for the 
consideration of investigators who have the knowledge and opportunities 
requisite to put them to use. It is a new field for botanists, which promises 
a sure and valuable harvest. 

The next extracts, which are from Tooke's View of the Iiussicm Empire, 
will give more full information of the steppes. 

" Arable land. — Under this head we must reckon various tracts of land, 
especially, 1. Those that are kept in constant cultivation and tillage, such 
as are every where seen in Great and Little Russia, in the provinces bor- 
dering on the Baltic, and many others. 2. Such as are only used at times, 
and left quiet for a great length of time. In some regions, for instance, in 
Little Russia, about the Don,f &c. where they are looked upon as steppes, 
which if merely ploughed and then sown, would be productive ; in others, 
for example, in Livonia, Esthonia, and Ingria, where they are rendered 
fertile by fire, and are called by the countrymen bush-lands.J On^such par- 
cels of ground, which are either allotted into particular possessions, or with- 
out a proper owner, villages might be gradually erected. In uninhabited 
districts these tracts are most frequent. 3. Those that are proper for agri- 
culture, but lie totally unemployed : they wait only for industrious hands. 
There are still plenty of these vast tracts where millions of men might find 
-work and profit, especially in fruitful steppes, and in numberless large forests. 

" The fertility of all these tracts is very different according to the quality 
of the soil. In Livonia and Esthonia, from good fields they reap 8, and in 
successful years from 10 to 12 fold ; from indifferent ground about only 3, 
but from better, at times 16 or even more than 20 fold. The harvests about 
the Don are commonly 10 fold ; but towards Tomsk on the Tshumush, and 
in the whole region between the Oby and the Tom, many fields afford an 
increase of 25 to 30 fold,§ and at Krasnoyarsk the failure of a crop was 
never heard of; of winter corn they reap 8, of barley 12, and of oats 20 
fold. || 

" In Little Russia, on the Don, and in many other places, the fields are 
never manured, only ploughed once, just to turn up the earth, afterwards har- 
rowed, and then sown : more culture, especially dunging, would push the 

* " Centaurea frigida, northern knap weed — on the steppes." " Centaurea radiata, 
rayed knap weed — on the steppes near Koslof. The sheep feed on it in winter, and it is 
supposed to give them that gray wool so much valued by the Tartars." " Crocus sativus, 
autumnal meadow-saffron — steppes near Achmetchet." " Geranium sylvaiicum, wood 
crane's bill — steppes." " Silene quadrifida, four-cleft catch-fly — steppes, near Perecop," 
" Sisymbrium Loeseiii, Loesel's hedge-mustard — steppes near Perecop." Staiice trigona, 
three-sided lavender — in the steppes, very frequent." " Vescia pannonica, Pannonian 
vetch — steppes. " Stipa Pennata — in all the steppes." Many other plants are named 
in different parts of the work, as found in the region of steppes, but it is not certain that 
they were always from such soil, and therefore are not added to this list. 

f The Don Kozak takes, in whatever part of the steppe he chooses, a piece fit for 
cultivation, and, bestows his labor upon it as long as he thinks proper or as long as its 
visible fertility will amply reward his labor. 

\ See Hupel Liefl. and Esthl. vol. ii. 

§ Pallas, vol. ii. p. 650 et seq. 

j| Ibid. vol. iii. p. 6. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



269 



corn up too luxuriantly or parch it, and so hurt the harvest, as the soil is 
sufficiently fertile of itself Of equal goodness is the ground in groat part 
of Siberia ; for example, on the Samara, on the Ufa in the country of the 
Bashkirs, here and there in the Baraba, or the Barabinian steppe, also on the 
Kama, whence a great quantity of corn is sent to the northern cornless 
dwelling-places on the Dvina and Petshora. In like manner too in the 
government of Isetsk the soil generally consists of a black earth, to the 
depth of an elJ, consequently is proper for tillage, for meadow-land, and gar- 
den ground. On the Oby near Barnaul, the black earth does not indeed go 
very deep, but the marly clay* that lies under it fertilizes it so much as to 
make it, in some places, yield plentiful harvests, without manuring, for 
twenty years successively.! At Krasnoyarsk, the fields will bear no manure 
whatever, and yet continue fruitful for 10 or 15 years, if only suffered to 
lie fallow every third year.f When the fertility ceases, the boor takes a fresh 
piece from the steppe. On the Selenga, in the district of Selenghinsk, the 
fields are hilly, and yet will bear no manure, as it is found on repeated trials 
to spoil the corn."} 

Speaking of the meadow land, the same author says— 

" Some steppes produce the best meadow-grass for provender, and yield 
seed for making artificial meadows; such as the esparcette, the alpine hedy. 
sarium, clover, various kinds of artemisia, pulse, star-flower plants,*!! and fine 
grasses that will bear any climate." 

There was good reason to believe that other plants mentioned as grow- 
ing on these lands, as clover, vetches, &c. indicated a calcareous soil ; but 
here is one mentioned, which alone is a positive and sufficient proof. 
Esparcette, which is stated as one of the natural grasses of some of the 
steppes, is the French name of sainfoin— and the fact of its growth, alone, 
proves, as well as any chemical analysis could, that all the soils bearing it 
are highly calcareous. Sainfoin not only delights in calcareous soils, but it 
will scarcely live, and cannot thrive, on any other. It is a valuable grass 
on chalk soils in England, which would be almost barren under grain 
tillage; and it has never been raised in Virginia, and indeed will scarcely 
produce a few feeble and scattering stalks on our best lands. The bald and 
least productive prairies of our western country would be the proper place 
for this grass. 

"All the meadows may be reduced to these four kinds: 1. Fine produc- 
tive meads that have a good black, but somewhat moist soil : these yield the 
greatest crops, of hay ; to them belong the luchten [overflowed land.] 2. 
Dry, whereof the soil is fit for agriculture, and at times is so employed ; 
they commonly yield a short but very nutritious hay. 3. Watery and 
marshy; these do not produce the best, but give a very serviceable hay in 
cases of scarcity in parching summers and dry places. 4. Fat steppes, 
where the grass in some parts grows to the height of a man: they are sel- 
dom mown." 

" Steppes. — This term does not properly denote low and watery places, or 
morasses, but dry, elevated, extensive, and for the most part uninhabited 
plains. Some of them being destitute of wood and water, are therefore 
uninhabitable; others have shrubs growing on them, and are watered by 
streams, at least have springs or wells, though they are void of inhabitants ; 

♦ A dark-gray earth, about a foot deep, beneath which runs a layer of clay, and ii 
held in many places to be fine arable land. 
t Pallas, vol. ii. p. 641. 
\ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 6. 



§ Ibid. p. 168. 

t Ibid. vol. ii. p. 75. 



34 



270 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX 

yet in these, nomadic people wander about with their herds and flocks, and 
thus make them, if not their constant, yet their summer residence. In 
many of them are seen villages. Some occupy a very large space: thus it 
is calculated that the steppe between Samara and the town of Uralsk* 
amounts in length to upwards of 700 versts ; but, as every twenty or thirty 
vers'.s we come to a lake or river, the Ural Kozaks traverse them when they 
fetch their meal from Samara. Probably hereafter several of these steppes, 
at least in some places, will be cultivated, if they wish to raise forests upon 
them. 

"In regard to the soil an extreme variety prevails, either being very fruit- 
ful and proper for agriculture or for meadow-land, or indiscriminately for 
both. Accordingly in the steppe about the Don, the Kozaks of those parts 
employ themselves in agriculture, as well as in the breeding of cattle. 
Some of them furnish excellent pasture by their fine herbage, as the south- 
ern tract of the Isetskoi province, and the steppe of the middle horde of the 
Kirghistzi.f Or the soil is unfruitful : whether it be the sand, the salt, or the 
stone it contains that is the cause of it. Among these are to be reckoned 
the sandy steppe on the Irtish near Omsk; in general we find about the 
mountains up the Irtish pure arid steppes, and therefore no villages. Also 
the Krasno-ufimskoi, between the rivers Belaia, Kama, and Tchussovaia, 
towards the Ural-chain, is mostly sandy ; and that on the Argoun towards 
the borders of China, is of a still worse soil, consisting of rocky particles 
and flint. The whole of the steppe along the river Kushum, towards the 
town of Uralsk, is described by Prof. Pallas}; as dry, poor, saline, and unfit 
for any kind of agriculture, for the breed of cattle, and even for permanent 
inhabitants ; there is not even a solitary shrub to be seen, much less any 
wood. In general saline spots are not un frequent in the steppes ; and here 
and there we also meet with salt-lakes : however, such districts may invite 
- to camel-pasture."— pp. 81, 83. 

" The steppes are frequently fired either by the negligence of travellers, 
or on purpose by the herdsmen, in order to forward the crops of grass ; or, 
it may be, out of malice, as some years since the Kozaks of the Yaik did ; 
when, having risen in rebellion, a small corps of Russian troops advancing 
against them, they saw themselves all at once almost entirely surrounded by 
the high grass on fire. Such a catastrophe often occasions great mischief; 
the flames spread themselves far and wide, put the dwellings of the inhabi- 
tants in imminent danger, consume the corn on the ground, and even seize 
on the forests. Many prohibitions under severe penalties have accordingly 
been issued against this practice, but they seldon have any effect. 5 All the 
steppes may be considered as a sort of common land."— p. 84. 

" The steppe of the Don and the Volga comprises the whole space be- 
tween the Don, the Volga, and the Kuban, and is a large, very arid steppe, 
altogether destitute of wood and water ; it has few inhabitants, and contains 

several salt-lakes and salt-plots." " Within the confines of this steppe 

lies what is called the Kuman steppe" " this, it is said, has all the ap- 
pearance of a dried-up sea : it is a sandy, part clayey salt plain, without trees. 
Many circumstances render it probable that it might really have been the 
sea bottom, as the flat shores of the Caspian and Azof Seas, the shallowness 
of their coasts, the low situation of the steppe, the saline lakes, and the sea 
shells" <%c. — J?ees' Cyclopaedia. 

Of the extensive Kamyk steppe, it is said, in the same work, that " the 
soil consists of sand, marl, and clay, often mixed with sea shells." 

* Formerly Yaik. 
t Pallas, vol. ii. p. 75 
% Travels, vol. iii. p. 525. 
§ See Pallas, vol. ii. p. 878 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 07 ] 

The latter passages include under the general name of steppes, sterile de- 
serts of altogether a dilfercnt character. In like manner, sonic great tracts 
of naked sand in South America are called pampas— and some of what 
called prairies, west of the Arkansas territory, are of somewhat similar 
general character to those described above. These are mentioned here to 
avoid the appearance of omitting what might be considered aa oppposing 
my positions. But these regions are altogether different from the lands pro- 
perly called prairies or steppes; and have no more connexion with oui 
subject than if they had been more properly called sandy, stony, or salt 
deserts. 

" Pampas, a province in South America, in the vice-royalty of Buenos 
Ayres, consists of vast plains, which extend from the sea coast on the east, 
to that great chain which forms the beginning of the Cordilleras of Chili, 
about 140 leagues west from the city of Buenos Ayres. Towards the south, 
they stretch about 100 leagues, to a chain proceeding W. N. W. from the 
Atlantic. The northern boundaries are not distinctly known, but the name 
of Pampas is chiefly applied to the territory on the south of Buenos Ayres, 
Cordova, and Mendoza. These vast plains, like the steppes of Russia, hav- 
ing scarcely any elevation, the view, as at sea, is terminated by the horizon. 
They are only diversified with paths and ditches, which collect the rain 
waters, and which commonly end in lakes, as there is no declivity ; yet there 
are wide tracts in which no water is found, nor is that element pure; and the 
trees are extremely rare, except a few shrubs round the lakes. Hence this 
region is only inhabited by a [e\v wandering savages. The soil is generally 
ablack earth of lillle depth, and is followed by a kind of coarse chalk, so that 
it is difficult to form wells, as the water can scarcely pass so tenacious a sub- 
stance. The chief pasturage is clover, and in the best parts, sometimes so 
strong as to resist the step of a horse : it is much liked by the cattle, which, 
when there is water, multiply prodigiously in the pampas." — I{ees , Cycl. 

" On leaving Buenos Ayres, the first region is covered for 180 miles with 
clover and thistles ; the second region (430 miles) produces long grass, with- 
out a weed ; and the third, reaching to the base of the Cordilleras, is a grove 
of low trees and shrubs, in which such beautiful order is observed, that one 
may gallop between them in every direction." " The climate of the pam- 
pas is subject to great differences of temperature, though the gradual 
changes are very regular. The winter is as cold as an English :\ovember. 
The summer is oppressively hot. But the whole pampas enjoy an atmo- 
sphere as beautiful and salubrious as the most healthy parts of Greece and 
Italy, without their materia." — Malle Bruns Geog. 

" The whole plain [nearest] to the foot of the Cordillera, is a loose sandy 
soil, greatly impregnated with saline matter, which is inimical to vegetation 
in the natural way. This immense tract is called the Traversia, or the 
Desert, resembling similar tracts in Africa. When assisted by irrigation, it 
is the most fertile soil imaginable." — Malte Brun's Geog. vol. 3, p. 362, (note.) 
Am. Ed. 

A late traveller from Bueno3 Ayres to the Andes, Temple, speaks thus of 
the first and second regions of pampas : 

"The country for leagues round is covered with thistles, which at this 
season are to be seen growing to the prodigious height of eight, and, in some 
places, ten feet : cattle which go in amongst theni to seek a shade from the 
sun, and to feed upon the grass beneath, are completely concealed. These 
thistles* form almost the only fuel for the few inhabitants who are scattered 

• At certain periods of the year, when the clover withers enormous thistles, tai 
twelve feet high, suddenly shoot up, hem in the roads and paths, and form a dense and 



272 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

over this vast wilderness : not a tree is to be seen, with the exception of a 
few peach trees, which have been planted in the immediate neighborhood of 
the huts." ******** 

" We now bade adieu to the region of thistles, through which we travelled 
for upwards of one hundred miles, and which, on each"side of the road, ex- 
tended as far as the eye could reach. At this season of the year, in conse- 
quence of these gigantic weeds being parched by the sun, the country, at 
a distance, had the appearance of being covered with ripe corn; but the 
scene was too monotonous to afford any agreeable impression. Madame 
de Stael, on her journey into Russia, remarks, [of the steppes,] "there is so 
much space that every thing is lost—" "rneme fcs chateaux, meme la popula- 
tion. On d.iroit qxCon traverse un pays dont la nation vient de s'en aller." 
Here, on the contrary, the traveller would say that he traverses a country 
where the nation is yet to come ; for every thing exists as nature first formed 
it, unimproved, uncultivated, untouched." * * * * 

"After leaving the region of thistles before mentioned, we travelled for 
about 120 miles through a country of more agreeable aspect, though not a 
tree as yet appeared to our view, the whole being one vast field of rich 
pasture. This is the true pampa of South America of which we have of 
late years read and heard so much in Europe." ***..* 
"Innumerable herds of cattle, the progeny, it is said, of six cows and a 
bull imported rather more than two centuries ago from Spain, range at 
lar<re over this ever verdant surface of inexhaustible luxuriance. I have 
been credibly informed that their numbers at the present day bear no pro- 
portion to what they were before the devastating havoc of the late civil 
war; still they appear to a European eye in countless multitudes, and leave 
the traveller no longer cause to wonder that such fine animals should, at 
• one time, have been slaughtered in thousands, merely for their hides." * * 
"This noble plain, entirely covered with pasture, extends many hundred 
miles into the regions of Patagonia, where it is yet unexplored. M. Hum- 
boldt calculated its area at 70,000 square leagues. 'This area,' he ob- 
serves, « of the pampas of Tucuman, Buenos Ayres, and Patagonia, (they 
are all united,) is consequently four times as large as the area of all France.' 
"No lawn was ever laid down with greater precision by the hand of 
man, than this vast interminable plain has been by nature. Not a stone is 
to be seen on its surface." — Temple's Travels. 

" In the whole of this immense region, there is not a weed to be seen. 
The coarse grass is its sole produce, and in the summer, when it is high, it 
is beautiful to see the effect which the wind has in passing over this wild 
expanse of waving grass : the shades between the brown and yellow are 
beautiful. The scene is placid beyond description : no habitation or human 
being is to be seen, unless occasionally the wild and picturesque outline of 
the jsraucho on the horizon, his scarlet poncho or cloak streaming horizon- 
tally behind him, his balls flying round his head, and as he bends forward 
towards his prey, his horse straining every nerve." — Head's Rough 
Notes, &c. 

Nature of prairie soils, so far as ascertained by chemical tests. 

After I had ascertained the truth of the novel and strange fact that 
scarcely any soils in Virginia, or of the other Atlantic states, of which I had 

impenetrable barrier. Mr. Head remarks : " The sudden growth of these plants is quite 
astonishing : and though it would be an unusual misfortune in military history, yet it is 
really possible, that an invading army, unacquainted with this countrv, might be impri- 
soned by these thistles, before they had time to escape from them." — Head's Notts. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX nja 

opportunity to examine specimens, contained any calcareous matter (car- 
bonate of lime,*) it became a new subject of surprise to learn from articles 
which have been published in the Farmers' Register (pp. 276, 277, vol. i.) 
that many of the prairie lands of Alabama were highly calcareous according 
to the observations of those who judged merely from appearances. Com* 
bininsr this fact with my own personal experience that old cleared lands, even 
slightly calcareous, were much more easily kept clear of young bushes, 
than naturally poor and acid soils-and with what I had read of the na- 
kedness of chalk downs in England— and the general difficulty of rearing 
trees in calcareous parts of Europe— all served to build up the opinion 
which I now aim to establish, that the abundance of calcareous earth in 
prairie soils was the principal, and is a sufficient cause of the absence of 
trees. Still there had never been an analysis made of any such soil, to my 
knowledge, and there was no other kind of evidence (however slight) of 
such quality of any prairie soils, except of a part of Alabama; and reports 
of the constituent parts of soils, judged solely by the eye, or by the mere 
close neighborhood of calcareous rock?, I knew from experience, deserved 
but little credit or respect. In 1834, I first obtained some such proofs from 
a few specimens of prairie and wooddand soils from Marengo county, Ala- 
bama, and one from Mississippi. The prairie soils were all calcareous, 
containing from 8 to 59 per cent, of carbonate of lime; and these were the 
first specimens of highly calcareous soils that I had ever examined, except 
from shelly spots on the banks of our tide-water rivers. The wood-land 
soils, like our lime-stone and other rich neutral soilsf contained no carbonate 
of lime. Since then, other specimens have been received and examined 
from various parts of .Alabama— and also the reports of analyses of others, 
made by Dr. Cooper and Dr. Gibbes of South Carolina, have been received, 
and have been published in this journal. J Most of these soils are highly 
calctrcous. But also some specimens of prairie soils contain not a particle of 
carbivate of lime. This apparent contradiction will be considered hereafter. 
It is proper to observe here that I do not extend the term prairie to any 
land bearing trees, unless of new growth, or land known to have formerly 
been without them. But the distinctness of this term is much impaired by 
its being now applied in Alabama (and perhaps elsewhere) to soils having 
the same peculiar texture, appearance, and sensible qualities, though covered 
with trees. Thus " wooded prairies" are spoken of in the pieces formerly 
published in this journal, and referred to in this piece. 

In addition to new facts of the same kinds, for the convenience of the 
reader, an abridged statement will here be given of the calcareous ingre- 
dients of all the prairie soils which I have formerly examined, or which 
have been analyzed by other persons, and the results communicated for 
publication to the Farmers' Register : and also of other neighboring soils, 
sometimes improperly called " prairie," though covered with growing trees. 
It is proper to observe, that my own examinations were confined to lime in 
one form of combination only — the carbonate— and that the silicious, alumi- 
nous, and vegetable ingredients, when mentioned, were judged of by the 
senses, and not by accurate chemical tests. My own trials and results will 
be given first. 

Specimens of soils from Marengo county, Alabama, furnished and select- 
ed by Richard Cocke, Esq. (Described more fully at page 44 of ' Essay on 
Calcareous Manures.' 

* Essay on Calcareous Manures, p .14. 
t Essay on Calcareous Mnaures, p. 38. 
\ See pages 715, vol. ii, and 272, vol. iii. Farmers' Register 



274 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

No. 1. Prairie soil of the most productive kind in Alabama — a black clay, 
with scarcely any sand, yet so far from being stiff, becomes too light by be- 
ing tilled. Bears luxuriant crops of corn, oats, and cotton— but the last, 
after a few years, becomes subject to rust. Contained 8 per cent, of car- 
bonate of lime. All this kind of soil lies on a substratum of " rotten lime- 
stone," (specimens of which contained from 72 to 82 per cent, of carbonate 
of lime) and which rises sometimes to the surface, forming the " bald 
prairies." 

No. 2. Bald prairie soil—" comparatively poor— neither trees nor bushes 
grow there, and only grass and weeds before cultivation— corn does not 
grow well — small grain better— cotton crops soon become subject to rust." 
Contained 59 per cent, of carbonate of lime. The general substratum of 
rotten limestone in texture and appearance, as well as in chemical charac- 
ter, approaches the chalk of Europe more nearly than any other earth known 
in the United States. 

No. 3. Very rich cane brake land — a kind of prairie of a wetter nature, 
from the winter rains not running off freely, and the tenacious soil not per- 
mitting the superfluous water to sink through — contained 16 per cent. 

No. 4. From the valley cane land — very wet through winter, but always 
dry in summer; after being ditched dry enough, and brings fine cotton, 
&c. Contained no carbonate of lime. 

No. 5. From what is called the best " post oak land," on which trees of 
that kind stand from two to four feet in diameter — but little underwood, and 
no cane — nearly as rich as the best cane land. No carbonate of lime. 

No. 6. " Palmetto land," having that plant as well as a heavy and luxuriant 
growth of large trees. A cold and wet soil before being brought into tilth, 
but afterwards soft and easy to till, and produces corn and cotton finely. 
The cane on it generally small. Soil from 4 to 10 feet deep. No carbonate 
"of lime. 

Selected by Dr. W. J. Dupuy — 

No. 7. Soil from the Choctaw Prairie in Mississippi, an extensive body 
of fertile land. Contained 13 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

Selected and sent by Dr. R. Withers, of Greene county, Alabama- 
No. 8. From Kemper county, Miss., part of a " considerable body of 
similar land, extending into Neshobakand Winston counties. Chocolate co- 
lored sandy loam, very friable and easily worked— produces corn and 
cotton well— growth, hickory, black-jack and some other oaks, principally 
red oak, interspersed with a few pines." Contained no carbonate of 
lime. 

No. 9. " Prairie soil from near Demopolis, Alabama, taken from the road 
near the surface. The rock here is within a few inches of the surface, and 
many small fragments are mixed with the soil. It is a dark calcareous 
mould— produces corn finely ; but there is too much lime for cotton." 
Contained 60 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

No. 10. Subsoil of the common " open prairie" of Greene county, taken 
from a foot or more below the surface. " The soil above is dark, and proba- 
bly less calcareous. The rock is not more than two feet below the surface. 
Lime was perceptible in this specimen in powder, in detached masses, be- 
fore being pounded." Contained 50 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

No. 11. "From the southern part of Noxubee county, Miss. — taken 4 
inches below the surface, of land cultivated two years. It is a prairie coun- 
try, but different from ours on this side of the Tombeckbe, in having the 
elevated parts of it, which hardly amount to hills, covered with hickory 
trees, interspersed with some black-jacks. Hence it is often called a 
"hickory barren" country. Between the timbered portions, there are long 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX 



275 



savannas, or open prairies, which are very level and rich. This specimen 
was taken from one of them. It is covered with a very heavy grass coat, 
very much resembling the gama grass; and some of it 1 know is of that 
species. It is at first very difficult to eradicate; but when this is once effect- 
ed, the soil is ns easily ploughed as other prairie soils, and produces corn 
very finely ; say from 50 to 60 bushels to the acre. Cotton however is pre- 
disposed to rust at first, and probably will he more so after the undecom- 
posed vegetable matter existing in the primitive soil becomes exhausted. Im- 
mediately on the outskirts of the hickory hammocks, where they join the 
open prairie, the cotton is much more disposed to rust, even the first year, 
and it is from such a locality that it was selected." 

No. 12. "This soil is very loose and friable, and it is generally in such land 
that I have observed the cotton to rust most. It grows off at first more 
luxuriantly than in other places, but as the heat of summer comes on, begins 
to look scorched, sheds its shapes, then the bolls, and leaves, until nothing is 
left but the dead stalks. These two specimens, Nos. II and 12, do not 
effervesce perceptibly with diluted sulphuric acid, but I presume you will find 
them stroncly impregnated with lime. There is a considerable tract of 
country of this kind of soil in Mississippi, and the lime-stone rock frequently 
shows itself near the surface. Detached masses of sand-stone are also fre- 
quently seen about the hill-sides and hickory hammocks." 

Neither of the last two specimens (Nos. 11, 12,) contained any carbonate 
of lime. The descriptions have been quoted at length, because the facts are 
among those that most oppose my argument. A similar deficiency of calca- 
reous earth was found in the four next specimens, which were sent by Capt. 
John Symington, U. S. A., of St. Louis. 

No. 1 3. From a small prairie in the neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. 
Fertile, but not equal to the best prairie soils. " This is high and rolling, and 
consequently dry— and never subject to inundation. Specimen taken about 
4 inches below the surface, and just below the fibrous grass roots." 

No. 14. "From the surface of a ridge of rolling prairie, in Macoupin 
county, Illinois — high and dry, and never subject to inundation." 

No. 15. "From .Macoupin county, Illinois. Also high prairie, and never 
subject to inundation, but quite level, and therefore the rain water does not 
flow off rapidly enough. Still it cannot be called a wet soil. It is consi- 
dered rich, and produces well grain of all kinds. Taken 2 feet below the 
surface." 

No. 16. Sent by George Churchill, Esq. Sample of the soil of the 
"Ridge Prairie," Madison, Illinois — "taken from 4 inches below the surface, 
where it has never been ploughed, and three-quarters of a mile from the 
nearest wood-land. Surface dry and rolling." 

Neither of the four last specimens contained a particle of carbonate of 
lime. All were very black (therefore supposed full of vegetable matter) and 
contained but a very small proportion of finely divided silicious earth. For 
any practical and useful purpose, this essential ingredient might almost be 
said to be entirely wanting. 

No. 17. Prairie soil from Madison county, Ohio — contained no carbo- 
nate of lime. 

No. 18. Prairie soil from Pickaway county, Ohio, contained a very 
small portion only of carbonate of lime. The amount was not ascertained 
precisely. 

The three next, selected and sent by Jas. Deas, Esq., were all taken from 
different depths below the same field of " unwooded prairie," in Lowndes 
county, Alabama. The surface soil black. 

No. 19. Taken 4£ feet below the surface, where very fertile — stiff clay 



276 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

of dark olive color when dry, and pounded for trial— very little silicious 
earth, and that very finely divided. Contained 1 1 per cent, of carbonate of 
lime. 

No. 20. "At 1£ feet below the surface, where the soil is rather thin" 
[or poor]— nearly white— contained 84 per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

No. 21. At 3 feet below the surface of another place, "also rather thin 
soil." Color darker than the preceding. Carbonate of lime, 27 per cent. 

No. 22. Of the celebrated fertile alluvial soil of Red River, Arkansas, a 
specimen of 300 grains contained 12 grains of earthy carbonates, of which 
rather more than one third was found to be carbonate of magnesia— the re- 
mainder carbonate of lime. So far a? I am informed, this is the first known 
fact of magnesia being found in a notable proportion in any soil in this 
country. It is hoped that this peculiarity of the Red River land will receive 
further investigation. The presence of magnesia was indicated by the very 
slow effervescence of the soil in acid. The separation of the two carbo- 
nates was made according to Davy's method, (directed in his " Agricultural 
Chemistry,") which, however, is not very accurate. 

The results of analyses of prairie soils (and some which, though so called, 
are covered with trees,) made by Drs. Cooper, Nott, and Gibbes, will now 
be adduced. See the more full report, Farmers' Register, p. 716, vol. ii. 

No. 23. Bald prairie on Big Swamp, Lowndes, Alabama. Plantation of 
Col. James Deas. Carbonate of lime 25 per cent. 

No. 24. Slue prairie— same plantation— 15 per cent. 

No. 25. From plantation of Messrs. Elmore and Taylor, on Pintlala creek, 
Montgomery, Alabama— open prairie— taken 6 inches below the surface. 
Carbonate of lime 38 per cent. 

No. 26. From same spot, taken 18 inches below the surface. Carbonate 
of lime 48 per cent. 

The balance were very late examinations of Alabama soils made by Dr. 
R. W. Gibbes, July 1835, and published in the Farmers' Register, vol. vi. 

No. 27. Slue prairie, (Col. Elmore's plantation)— 6 or 8 inches below the 
surface— Carbonate of lime 26 per cent. 

No. 28. Hammock prairie, carbonate of lime 22 per cent. 

No. 29. Open prairie, mahogany colored, no limestone, and vegetable 
matter as much as 38 per cent. 

No. 30. Hog-bed prairie, carbonate of lime 8. 

No. 31. Post oak prairie, no limestone, and vegetable matter 38 per cent. 
[From the name, it is presumed that this is such wooded land as No. 5, and 
therefore improperly called prairie land.] 

No. 32. Black slue prairie, (Moulton plantation of Dr. J. H. Taylor.) 
Carbonate of lime 12 per cent. 

No. 33. Prairie, (scattering large post oak.) mingled with red clay. Car- 
bonate of lime 6 per cent.— and vegetable matter 32. 

No. 34. Open prairie— from a hill or ridge, 18 per cent. 

No. 35. White open prairie, (Chisolm's)— from near surface— soil not more 
than 18 inches deep. Carbonate of lime 42 per cent. Vegetable matter 28. 

Formation of prairies, <$c. accounted for, and apparent exceptions to the rule 

explained. 

My views of the manner in which prairies are formed will now be sub- 
mitted. 

There are some few trees, as wild or black locust, papaw, and hackber- 
ry, which thrive best on soil moderately calcareous, and will scarcely live 
in soils very deficient in lime. But most forest trees prefer soils having so 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



277 



little lime, as to be, if nut naturally poor, at least unfriendly to the growth 
of grass. Hence such lands are covered naturally by an unmixed growth 
of trees, and are almost destitute of grass. Calcareous soils are, on the 
contrary, favorable to the growth of grass, and unfavorable to the growth 
of trees, and the more so (other circumstances being alike) in proportion to 
the excess of lime in the soil. Supposing such a soil to have been so pro- 
tected as to be covered with trees, the first passage over it of fire, which 
would be harmless to the more hardy growth of acid soil, would here serve 
to scorch and damage the trees, feeble and tender, because unnaturally 
placed. This effect would be the greater because such calcareous wood- 
land would have some growth of rank grass, which, as dry fuel, would add 
to the violence of the fire, and to its effect. The next winter, the crippled and 
stinted condition of the trees would prepare them to be still more damaged 
by the like passage of fire, and its violence would be increased by the greater 
quantity of dead and dry wood, and the increased growth of grass less ob- 
structed now by shade. Every year these circumstances would serve the 
more to augment the destructive power of the fires, and to diminish the 
power of resistance in the still living trees. In the course of time all the trees 
would be killed, and burnt, and then the seeds and roots after springing in 
vain many succeeding summers, would finally have to yield to destruction 
also. The surface is then covered with the growth of grass most suitable 
to its composition, which growth is luxuriant according to the fertility of the 
soil. So long as fires sweep every year over such land, the prairies can 
never be covered with wood ; and on the contrary will be extending every 
year so long as there is wood which the fires can destroy, and land that 
will yield grass to furnish the fuel for still more extended ravages. 

It may well happen also, that a soil not at all calcareous, if bordering on 
a prairie, would be so exposed to the power of lire, when driven in all its 
violence by strong winds, that its trees would be damaged, and finally 
killed, and the land brought likewise to the prairie state. Such land, however, 
would be making continual efforts to return to its more natural state of 
wood-land ; and whether under young wood, or a meager cover of grass, 
would, by refusing fuel, serve to check the farther extension of the ravages 
of fire. 

This would be one means of land not calcareous being brought to the 
prairie state. There are two other means for the formation or extension of 
prairies on land not calcareous, both of which are probably more often 
operative. These will now be considered. 

It may be inferred that the destruction of trees on calcareous s ils is not 
so much caused by their absolute unkindliness to trees, as by their far 
greater suitableness for grass, which serves when dry as fuel to burn the 
trees. Now if any thing other than the presence of calcareous earth will 
produce an equally rank growth of grass, the same destructive end will be 
produced, and as completely in time, though perhaps with less facility and 
quickness. Moisture in the soil will in this manner serve as well as calca- 
reous matter— and if the surface is only dry enough at some time in every 
year to permit full force to the fire, similar effects must be produced in de- 
stroying and keeping down the growth of trees. In this manner are formed 
the rich alluvial prairies or savannas on the great western rivers, which arc 
covered by floods sometimes, and perfectly dry at others. 

Again— a soil may be free from floods, and from all water except from 
the clouds, and yet without being calcareous, may be so constituted as to 
attract and retain moisture, with great force, and thus be very favorable to 
the growth of grass, and consequently to the formation of prairies. This 
constitution is produced when a soil is formed almost entirely of fine alu- 



278 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

minous, or argillaceous earth, and decomposed vegetable matter— and this 
is precisely the composition of every specimen of prairie soil which I have 
examined, and which was not highly calcareous. Examples of some such soils 
are presented in the foregoing list. The soils contained very little silicious 
earth, and that little so fine as only to be made sensible to trial between the 
teeth. The ordinary mode of separating silicious from aluminous earth, by 
agitation in water, was quite ineffectual for the purpose. Though no car- 
bonate of lime was present, it is certain that the soils were neutral* — that is, 
that they contained in some other combination enough lime to make fer- 
tile and absorbent soils. This, added to the quantity of finely divided vege- 
table mould, and to the fine clay composing nearly the whole earthy portion, 
forms a soil that holds water like a sponge, and must be peculiarly favora- 
ble to the growth of grass.f This alone will suffice to account for prairies 
being formed on such soils — even if soils so destitute of silicious parts are 
not (as I think to be very probable, but do not know them to be) as unfavo- 
rable to the growth "of trees as are dry calcareous soils. 

Practical application of the foregoing vieios,for the improvement and better 
cultivation of prairie lands. 

The calcareous prairie soils, as well as all those not calcareous, are in 
general remarkably deficient in sand, and would be far more valuable but for 
this deficiency. This excess of aluminous earth (or pure clay) and not the 
calcareous matter, causes the remarkable and troublesome adhesiveness of 
these soils. Is it also not likely that to this defect of constitution is owing 
the great prevalence on prairie soils of the rust in cotton 1 It cannot be 
caused by the calcareous earth, as two of the specimens which were sent 
by Dr. Withers from land peculiarly subject to produce that disease, con- 
tained no carbonate of lime. But whether or not the rust is one of the evil 
effects of a great deficiency of sand, there are enough others, to make it 
very desirable to remedy this defect in soils otherwise so valuable. This 
might be done by the process of paring and burning the surface, as is often 
done in England, when a new or sod-covered field is brought from pasture 
into tillage. The first preparing of prairie soil for tillage, by the plough, is 
very laborious, and perhaps it would not be much more troublesome to pare 
and burn the sod. This would be the most perfect preparation for tillage ; 
and the unrotted and redundant vegetable matter would be converted from 
a nuisance to a benefit ; and the fine clay, burnt to brick-like particles, would 
form an artificial coarse sand, serving to open and cure the previous close 
texture of the soil. If the turf had already been conquered by tillage, burn- 
ing clay in kilns, as was practised for manure in Europe, and by some in 
the Atlantic states, would serve the same purpose of providing a durable 
earthy ingredient acting mechanically like coarse sand. By paring and 
burning the surface of the soil, prairie lands might also be made more 
healthy. It is true that they are now considered generally healthy — the cal- 
careous prairies especially. But though there may be lime enough, in most 
cases, to hold in combination the immense quantity of vegetable matter, still 
the latter must be greatly in excess in many cases ; and when so, must be 
rapidly decomposing, after being ploughed, and evolve effluvia injurious 

* Essay on Cal. Man. p. 44. 

f Mould [terreau] can absorb double its weight of water without appearing moist ; 
and after being dried, it draws from the atmosphere in less than twenty-four hours, a 
quantity of water, which may vary, according to the humidity of the atmosphere, from 
80 to 100 per cent, of its weight, — Berzehus— quoted in Essay on CaJ. Man, p. 169, 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



^79 



to health. If the prairie lands could by a miracle be suddenly and com- 
pletely deprived of all their lime, the decomposition and waste in the air of 
their putrescent matter, now held combined and harmless, would make 
them as sickly as the western coast of Africa. 

Exceptions and apparent contradictions explained. 

Supposing these general causes to operate in the formation of prairie 
lands, the least reflection will show that their power and effects will be 
often greatly modified by other circumstances. It is well known that in 
prairie regions, the borders of rivers and small streams are generally 
clothed with trees. They are protected from the fires in some measure by 
the dampness of the earth, and because low bottoms are more sheltered 
from winds. The river also is a secure barrier against the flames, and 
therefore always guards one of its banks, at least. "Even the close neigh- 
borhood of those exempted places, would diminish the violence of the 
flames; and spots abundantly calcareous, and lying high, might thus retain 
their wood growth. It would require that the flames should pass over a 
considerable space, and with a full supply of dry fuel, to acquire the requi- 
site force and rapidity for producing destruction. Therefore the vicinity of 
the wooded banks of a river would not probably be changed from wood- 
land to prairie, by any fires driven by winds from the river. To produce 
this effect, the winds which prevail in dry seasons must drive the flames 
toivards the rivers, and downward between their forks. The existing state 
of things on the borders of the Mississippi and Missouri (as I have been 
told) accords well with this position. The north-west winds are generally 
dry, and blow with great violence; and wherever their direction is between 
the forks of streams and down their course, the prairie extends nearly or 
quite to the water's edge. But streams running from the opposite slope of 
the great valley, oppose the course and obstruct the effects of these fires — 
and the easterly winds, which would bear on them in like manner as to di- 
rection, are generally accompanied by rain. Therefore, in the last situation 
calcareous soils may retain their growth of trees, and in the former, soils 
well constituted to nourish and support them, may be brought to the state 
of poor prairie land. 

If these general views are well founded, the manner in which prairies are 
formed can no longer be mistaken ; and though a highly calcareous soil is 
deemed the most general and the most important means, the theory serves 
as satisfactorily to explain the existence of prairies on various other situa- 
tions, though the soil be not calcareous. 

Ancient prairie lands in the lime-stone region of Virginia. 

In the foregoing observations I have limited the total absence of prairies 
in the Atlantic states to the eastern slope from the mountains to the sea, 
and to all poor land even among the mountains. In the rich limestone 
lands of Rockbridge and Clarke counties, and perhaps on similar soils else- 
where between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains, there certainly 
were prairies at an early period. When that part of Virginia was first 
settled by the present race of inhabitants, large bodies of land weio covered 
entirely by young sapling wood, and there were other indisputable proofs 
that at an earlier time few trees, if any, had been there growing. But 
though these lands are enough impregnated with lime (in some form) to be 
very rich, and to be favorable to the growth of grass, they contain no car- 



2g0 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

bonate of lime* — and therefore the land must have been brought to the 
prairie state slowly and with difficulty, under the long continued operation 
of annually repeated fires — and their intermission for a few years was 
enough to enable the soil to again throw up a new growth of young trees. 
These appearances were so well known in Rockbridge, that some very in- 
telligent persons, born and reared in that county, have thence inferred that 
the wood cover of our country was every where comparatively recent, 
and that at some former and not very remote time, every part of this con- 
tinent had been without trees ; which is an example of very erroneous rea- 
soning from particular to general facts. 

Of soils rendered barren by ecrcess of calcareous matter— and the fertility 
produced on them by irrigation. 

The " bald prairies" of Alabama present the only known cases in the 
United States of bodies of land so highly calcareous as to be thereby 
lessened in productiveness. This effect will increase as exhausting culti- 
vation shall lessen the vegetable ingredients of the soil; and probably 
(under a continuation of such tillage) the barren spots will extend widely 
into what now form their fertile margins. The quantity of vegetable matter 
accumulated in the highly calcareous prairie soils is now so great, that a 
very long course of exhausting tillage will be borne before sterility can be 
produced. Nevertheless, however remote may be that result, its occur- 
rence is not the less sure, if exhausting tillage is pursued. Similar to our 
rich prairies probably was the original state of the now poor chalk downs 
of England, the almost barren plains of "Lousy" Champagne in France— 
and some of the still more hopeless deserts of Asia and Africa. The fur- 
' nishing or retaining of a sufficiency of vegetable matter would cure this 
kind of barrenness, and more easily will prevent its extension beyond its 
present limits, in our own new country. In other countries, water alone, 
used for irrigation, has had the effect of making highly fertile, and keeping 
it so, land so calcareous that it would otherwise have been altogether bar- 
ren. Many facts of this kind may be gathered from the writings of travel- 
lers; but their notices are very slight, and merely incidental, as unfortu- 
nately, none who have viewed and described these lands, possessed any 
agricultural knowledge. Some of these passages will be quoted. In some 
far remote future time, perhaps the overflowing wells of southern Alabama, 
may be used to irrigate the excessively calcareous soils, and to retain or 
restore their fertility. 

Denon, in his Travels in Egypt, (Am. Ed. vol. ii., p. 4,) when at Siut, or 
Lycopolis, 2| degrees south of Cairo, speaks thus of the Lybian range of 
mountains. " I found this, as I had supposed, a ruin of nature, formed of 
horizontal and regular strata of calcareous stones more or less crumbling, 
and of different shades of whiteness, divided at intervals with large ma- 
millated and concentric flints, which appear to be the nuclei, or as it were, 
the bones of this vast chain, and seem to keep it together, and prevent its 
total destruction. This decomposition is daily happening by the impression 
of the salt air, which penetrates every part of the calcareous surface, de- 
composes it, and makes it, as it were, dissolve down in streams of sand, 
which are at first collected in heaps at the foot of the rock, and are then car- 
ried away by the winds, and encroaching gradually on the cultivated plains 
and the villages, change them into barrenness and desolation." The Lybian 
chain of mountains which runs nearly parallel with the Nile, there ap- 

* Essay on -Calcareous Manures, p. 31. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 



281 



proaches very close to it, and the narrow strip of fertile and irrigated land 
between must necessarily have been deeply though gradually covered by 
the same calcareous sand ; (indeed the continued operation of the like 
causes is raising, not only the borders, but even the bed of the Nile ;) yet 
Denon mentions particularly the high state of cultivation seen in his next 
day's journey up the river. It is well known that wherever the waters of 
the Nile have been conveyed to irrigate these sands, an astonishing degree 
of fertility has been the immediate consequence ; and that wherever the 
"canals for this purpose have been permitted to become dry, (often the effect 
of political causes on this wretched population,) there is as sure a return to 
the former state of naked and barren sand. There is reason also to be- 
lieve (though upon slighter foundation,) that portions of the great deserts of 
both Asia and Africa also are excessively calcareous, and owe their ste- 
rility to that cause, combined with the general absence of water. The only 
direct testimony as to this character of the soil, is in the following passage 
from Madden's Travels. He was in the desert between Egypt and Judea. 
" Next day we travelled all day long without seeing a single tree, or the 

smallest patch of verdure, or laying our eyes on any human being." 

" The soil was no longer sandy, but of a hard gravel, on which a carriage 
might be rolled from Salehie to Suez. At night we stopped at a well with- 
out water, and here I examined the soil, three feet below the surface ; [for] 
two feet deep there is a superficial stratum of calcareous pebbles, and 
below that, a solid bed of limestone, which I believe to be the basis of the 
soil of all Egypt."— [p. 122, vol. ii., Am. Ed.] 

" One thing is certain that wherever there is water, no matter in what 
part of the wilderness, there vegetation is to be found. The stopping up 
of the canals, and the want of irrigation, are the great causes of desolation 
which favor the extension of the desert. The country from San to Salehie, 
and probably to Suez, was formerly a cultivated country : the ruins of 
palaces, such as those of Zoan and that of Beit Pharoon, now in the middle 
of the desert, prove that the country around then must have been cultivated, 
and that at a very short period before our era."— lb. p. 1 2G. 

Lieut. Burnes, who has recently published the very interesting account of 
his travels across central Asia, after describing, in various detached passages, 
the barren and often naked sands of the great Tartarian desert, over which he 
had been many weeks passing, and of the great scarcity of water even in the 
few wells, and the total want of it elsewhere, thus describes the approach to 
the river Moorghab, or Merve, and the effects of irrigation. "By the time the 
sun had set, we found ourselves among the ruins of forts and villages, now 
deserted, which rose in castellated groups over an extensive plain. I have 
observed that we were gradually emerging from the sand-hills, and these 
marks of human industry which we had now approached, were the ancient 
remnants of civilization of the famous kingdom of Merve, or Meroo. Be- 
fore we had approached them, we had not wanted signs of our being de- 
livered from the ocean of sand, since several flocks of birds had passed 
over us. As the mariner is assured by such indications that he nears land, 
we had the satisfaction of knowing that we were approaching water, after a 
journey of 1 50 miles [from the last habitable spot] through a sterile waste, 

where we had suffered considerable inconvenience from the want of it." 

" This river was formerly dammed above Merve, which turned the principal 
part of its waters to that neighborhood, and raised that city to the state of 
richness and opulence it once enjoyed. The dam was thrown down about 
45 years ago by Shah Moorad, a king of Bokhara, and the river now only 
irrigates the country in its immediate vicinity. The inhabitants cultivate by 
irrigation, and every thing grows in rich luxuriance" and where the 



282 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

waters 'have been withdrawn, as stated above, the country is again a desert, 
and the former habitations are tenantless ruins. Another inhabited and culti- 
vated spot in the desert is afterwards thus mentioned. "The country around 
Shurukhs is well watered with aqueducts, from the rivuiet of Tejend, which 
is a little brackish, but its waters are usefully employed in fertilizing the 
fields. The soil is exceedingly rich, and possesses great aptness of agricul- 
ture ; the seed is scattered and vegetates almost without labor. The harvest 

is rich." "The inhabitants repeat a tradition that the first of men tilled 

in Shurukhs, which was his garden, while Serendib or Ceylon was his 
house ! There is not a tree or a bush to enliven the landscape." 

But these speculations, however plausible, would require many additional 
facts and proofs, to place them on as sure ground, as I flatter myself, the 
earlier part of this essay has done for the cause of the formation of prairies. 
However interesting it may be to the inquiring mind to extend views so far 
upon unexplored ground, prudence admonishes that in that way I have al- 
ready exceeded the proper limits of argument sustained by known and 
undoubted facts. 

Addendum. 

Since the first publication of this piece (in 1835) there have come under 
my notice many statements of facts serving to confirm the positions as- 
sumed, and none to oppose them. Most of these statements are of more 
extended observations of other prairie soils and prairie regions, which are 
unnecessary to recite, as they agree generally and fully with the numerous 
particular examples cited in the foregoing pages. Some other of such 
evidences, on a different branch of the subject, will be here added, in con- 
* firmation of some of the positions before presented. 

It was stated above, on the authority of Denon, that the soil of part of 
the sandy desert of Egypt (near Lycopolis) which is encroaching on and 
covering the rich borders of the Nile, consists of almost pure carbonate of 
lime, in calcareous sand formed by the continual disintegration of the range 
of Lybian mountains, there close adjacent. Also, on general authority 
and understanding of the facts, that this calcareous sand, though forming 
a barren and naked desert when dry, was made fertile wherever moistened 
naturally or artificially, by the waters of the Nile. Other facts were stated 
of places which are now and have long been naked deserts of dry sand, 
which are known to have been formerly watered by the industry of man, 
and were then highly fertile. And hence my inference that, wherever 
watering of barren sands had induced fertility, such sands must have 
been highly calcareous; and that the great abundance of the calcareous 
ingredient is both a cause of the barrenness of such soils when dry, and of 
their immediate change to productiveness and subsequent great fertility, 
when supplied with water. If, (to suppose a case.) instead of 70 per cent, 
of finely divided carbonate of lime in the soil of what is now a desert, there 
had been but 10 per cent, of that ingredient, and all the other parts had 
been silicious sand and clay, it may be presumed that the land would be 
much less barren than it is in these highly calcareous deserts, and with 
a moderate share of rain might be actually and highly fertile. In Egypt 
rain is a very rare occurrence; and therefore, except where watered 
naturally or artificially from the Nile, the highly calcareous sands are with- 
out moisture, and must necessarily constitute a perfectly barren desert. 

The Lybian mountains being composed of calcareous rock, continually 
disintegrated and blown away by the winds in fine sand, would also alone 
serve to prove that the vast extent of desert sand thus spread over Egypt 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 283 

must be largely composed of carbonate of lime. But that is not all. 
Malte-Brun says— "The analysis of the mud of the Nile gives nearly one 
half of argillaceous earth, about one fourth of carbonateof lime, the remain- 
der consisting of water, oxide of iron, and carbonate <>> ■ ■' " >- 
sal Geography, book Lr.) This is the deposite of the overflowings of the boun- 
teous Nile, and which annually manures and preserves in the highest state 
of fertility, all the sands to which it is conveyed by the inundations. The 
same high authority furnishes some additional testimony, confirmatory of 
Denon's, as to the calcareous composition of soils of or near the deserts, 
or of rocks which by their disintegration must help to form the neighboring 
soil. " The mountains on the west side of the Nile seem to consist of lime- 
stone containing many shells. In those on the east side, serpentine and 
granite seem to form the highest ridges." "The valley leading to ( 'osseir 
[on the Red Sea] is covered with a sand partly calcareous, partly quartz- 
ose. The mountains are of limestone and sandstone." Un. Geog. book Ix. 
" At the distance of eight miles from Cosseir the mountains suddenly change 
their character; a great part of them are limestone, or alabaster in strata. 
Here are found the debris of the ostrea diluviana." — " Towards the valley 
of Suez, the mountains are calcareous, and in several places composed of 
concreted shells." (lb. book Ix.) 

The same author speaks thus of the country and desert of Barca, which 
is south of a part of Barbary, and north of the Zahara or great African 
desert. " Some call Barca a desert, and the interior certainly merits that 
name." — " The coast of Barca. once famed for its three-fold crops [as stated 
by Herodotus and Strabo] is now very ill cultivated ; the wandering tribes 
of the desert allow no rest to the inhabitants, or security to their labors."— 
"A sandy plain at the bottom of the mountains [a part of the desert from 
Siwah to Andelah] presents on its surface an immense calcareous bank, 
which contains no traces of petrifaction, while the adjacent mountains are 
full of the remains of marine animals and shells. These are also met with 
here in large isolated heaps." (lb. book Ixv.) 

Fezzan is surrounded by the desert, and seems to partake of the character 
of the desert in all respects, except in the close neighborhood of abundant 
water under-ground, and of its consequence, the exuberant fertility for 
which this country is celebrated. Malte-Brun says of Fezzan, "In the 
whole country there is no river or stream worthy of notice. The soil is a 
deep sand covering rocks, and sometimes a calcareous or argillaceous earth. 
There are numerous springs, which supply water for the purposes of agri- 
culture. The whole of Fezzan, indeed, abounds in water at a moderate 
depth underground, derived, no doubt, from the rains which fall on hills 
more or less distant, perhaps on the confines of the desert, and though ab- 
sorbed by the sand, find their level among the loose strata, across a broad 
extent of desert, till they become accessible in Fezzan, and impart to the 
country its characteristic fertility." (lb. book Ixv.) Though the author (or 
his translator) has used the word " springs," it is evident from the context 
that the sources of water are not what we here understand by springs, but 
are wells, requiring to be dug to reach the water to be thence drawn, 
and not furnishing flowing streams. 

But even if there were no direct or positive evidence of these sands be- 
ing calcareous, enough of indirect evidence would be presented in the well 
known fact that exuberant productiveness is induced wherever watering 
is applied. And wherever such results are stated by travellers to be pro- 
duced on barren sands and in deserts, in any part of the world, it may be 
safely assumed that calcareous earth must form a sufficient, if not a 
superabundant portion of the soil. Unfortunately, no travellers through 



2£4 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

sandy deserts and irrigated regions have been competent, and enough 
observant, to describe the agricultural qualities of the soils. I have not 
heard of there having been brought away any specimens of such remark- 
able soils, except in a single case ; and for which one opportunity for obtaining 
direct proof of the ingredients we are indebted to the enlightened curiosity 
and investigating mind of an American lady. When I was lately (in 1842) 
at the Patent Office in Washington, I saw among many other collected 
subjects of curiosity, a small bottle labelled " Sand from the desert of 
Barca." It had been obtained and was presented by Mrs. Macauley, the 
wife of David S. Macauley, the American consul at Barca. I asked for and 
obtained a small portion of it, for the purpose of ascertaining its com- 
position in regard to calcareous matter. Upon trial I found it to contain 
49 per cent, of carbonate of lime ! This sand is very fine, of a pale yellow 
color, and would offer to the eye, or to slight observation, no indication of 
being any thing else than almost pure silicious sand, slightly tinged by 
ferruginous matter. 

It may seem to some readers that these speculations on sandy deserts, 
upon such few data furnished in positive facts, are a wide departure from the 
investigation of prairie soils ; and that the deductions, even if established, 
are more curious than useful, and can lead to no practical result. But it is 
not so, if the lights thus obtained are properly applied. The facts here 
presented in connexion with others previously discussed, serve to show 
that the same cause, (a very large proportion of calcareous earth,) according 
to the existence or changes of other circumstances, may produce in soils 
either the highest degree of fertility, or the most complete sterility. These 
modifying circumstances are the presence in the soil of much putrescent 
matter, the accumulation of ages of repose under grass, or of abundance of 
"water — or of the absence or great deficiency of both. It may be merely a 
matter of curious speculation, however correctly deduced from the positions 
here maintained, that it is possible, and perhaps would be profitable, merely by 
raising water to the surface, to bring to a state of productiveness most of 
the naked and burning deserts of Africa. But another deduction is not 
merely a matter for idle and amusing speculation, but is a most important 
truth, and strictly applicable to practice ; which is, that the rich prairie 
regions of the west and south-west of the United States and of Texas, if 
continued to be scourged unremittingly by exhausting tillage, will finally 
become deserts as barren as those of Lybia and Barca. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX ^85 

NOTE VII. — Extension of subject from pp. 57 and I 

RECENTLY OBSERVED POWERS OF CALCAREOUS I THF, PRO- 

DUCTIVENESS OF LAND AND THE IIEALTII1TI.NLSS OF THE SERB. 

It was stated at pages 103-4, that though the practical results of applica- 
tions of calcareous manures conformed strictly to the theory of their action as 
previously laid down, yet they exceeded the measure or amount of effect 
which would have been anticipated from the theory alone. Since a 
large portion of this work has been printed, I have first heard of the dis- 
covery, by Dr. William L. Wight, of Goochland, of a before unknown pro- 
perty of calcareous earth, which operates to increase in an important 
ree its fertilizing power, and also its health-preserving power. I was 
favored by a mutual friend with the perusal of a rough draught of an essay 
in which these views were incidentally presented, and which Dr. Wight 
had designed for publication in a medical journal. I immediately re- 
quested him to communicate these particular and interesting views, in such 
form as would suit agricultural and general readers, for publication in the 
Farmers' Register. To this he assented ; and I had hoped before this time 
to have been enabled thus to present the article entire to the public, in 
which case, it might here be merely referred to, as already in the possession 
of my readers. The communication lias been received ; hut too late to be 
included in the few remaining pages of the current volume of the Farn. 
Register, or to precede the appearance of this note; though it will appear 
at length in the first number of the second series of that journal. 

Before stating the newly discovered powers above referred to, it is 
necessary to introduce them by some general statements of established or 
received opinions of vegetable and animal life and functions. 

The atmosphere is composed mainly of oxygen and nitrogen gases, 
(and which two alone are deemed essential to the constitution of atmo- 
spheric air) with a very small but universally occurring admixture of 
carbonic acid gas. The oxygen gas (formerly termed " vital air," from its 
admitted quality,) is that part of the atmosphere which is essential to the 
life of breathing animals, and which is diluted to form atmospheric air by the 
mixture of nitrogen gas, and also by the small and perhaps accidental, but 
always present carbonic acid gas, either of which alone is not only incapa- 
ble of supporting life, but to breathe which is deadly, and immediate in its 
fatal effects. Hence it has been supposed, and it is difficult to deny the 
positions, that to give larger supplies of oxygen gas to the atmosphere must 
render it more healthful, and to increase the quantity of carbonic acid gas 
must render it less so. It must be admitted, however, that these deductions, 
though in accordance with the known and opposite qualities of these 
different gases, and with reason, are not sustained by the analyses which 
have been made of atmospheric air in various places. For if these analyses 
are to be entirely confided in, they wouid show that in all situations, the 
highest or the lowest, the most pure and healthy and the most pestilential and 
fatal to human life, the proportion of oxygen in the air is precisely the same 

By the respiration of animals, the atmospheric air is partially decom- 
posed, and the relative amounts of its ingredients altered, at least for the 
time. Some of the oxygen gas of the air inhaled is retained by the lungs and 
given to the blood; and some nearly formed carbonic acid gas is niven out 
from the lungs continually, and added to the atmosphere. Thus, the breathi- 
ng, or the existence of animals, if acting alone, or not counteracted, would 

•ve continually to deteriorate the purity of the atmosphere, and to render 
--S conducive to the support of healthy animal life. 

36 



286 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

But to this very general operation of animal life, there is as general and 
as operative a countervailing action in vegetable life. Carbonic acid gas 
is essential to the health and growth of plants, and serves to furnish them 
with a very large if not indeed their larger proportion of bulk and sub- 
stance. All that part of every vegetable substance which can be converted 
to charcoal (or carbon) has been furnished to the plant from the atmo- 
sphere in the shape of carbonic acid gas, which is a combination of oxygen 
gas and carbon. The leaves of growing plants absorb this ingredient 
from the atmosphere, and retain and fix the carbon as part of their sub- 
stance, and evolve the pure oxygen ; thus taking from the air some of its 
poisonous ingredient, and adding to it new supplies of the purifying or 
health-supporting gas.* 

It follows necessarily from these premises that if by any means these 
universal powers and continual action of plants, to absorb carbonic acid 
gas and evolve oxygen gas, be in any manner increased, that proportional 
increase must be given by the first to the growth of the plant, and by the 
second, proportional purification and healthiness to the atmosphere. 

To these general views and positions the recent observations of Dr. 
Wight apply admirably. He ascertained, by a series of careful and well 
conducted and repeated experiments, that the diffusion of carbonate of lime 
in water with which plants were nourished, caused in the plants a great 
and remarkable increase of both the above named actions ; so that they 
absorbed much more, in some cases a quadrupled quantity, of carbonic 
acid, and evolved as large an increased quantity of oxygen gas. If this be 
so— and the manner of the experiments stated leaves no ground to doubt 
the accuracy of their conduct, or of their results— then there can be no 
question of the following important deductions : that besides all other modes 
, and powers of fertilizing action of lime in soil, as maintained in this essay, 
it also causes plants to draw from the atmosphere a very large accession 
of nutriment; and to increase in proportion the measure of their ordinary 
purification of the atmosphere. And therefore, these interesting and new ob- 
servations serve to confirm and to show additional and important reasons 
for the operation of calcareous manures both for increasing the productive- 
ness of lands, and of lessening the amount of disease among the residents 
thereon and in the vicinity. 



NOTE VIII.— Extension of subject frontpage 161. 

DIRECTIONS FOR BURNING AND APPLYING OYSTER-SHELL LIME. 

The following directions and remarks may be useful to some of those 
persons to whom shell-lime will be cheaper than either marl or stone lime. 

Oyster-shells are brought by vessels to the landing places of the purchasers 
on the James river, and sold on board usually at 62| cents the hogs- 
head, of 18 heaped bushels. Where fuel is plenty, the shells and dry pine 
wood, in alternate layers, are built up in a heap of cubical form for burning. 
In this manner, if judiciously executed, 12 cords of wood are sufficient to 
burn 100 hogsheads of shells to quick-lime. A more careful mode of burn- 
ing was used by the late Fielding Lewis, of Weyanoke, which was de- 
scribed in an account of his farming in the Farmers' Register, for June, 1833, 
and which will be copied below, together with his mode of application ; 

• As this is the greatly preponderating action of vegetables, the smaller reverse opera- 
tion (which takes place at night) is passed over, as unnecessary to be referred to more 
fully than in this manner. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 287 

which is still deemed the best for separating the particles of lime and spread- 
ing it equally over the land ; and also (I will add, as another important 
object,) to permit the quick-lime by exposure to become again combined 
with carbonic acid in the shortest time. 

" Close kilns, with walls of brick or stone, have not yet been used to burn 
oyster shells for manure ; and until fuel becomes more costly than the ad- 
ditional transportation of the lime, it will be cheaper to use wooden kilns. 
What are commonly called lime kilns are merely heaps of wood and shells, 
built up in a somewhat cubical form, by which the burning is imperfectly 
performed at great expense of fuel though without much trouble. Mr. Lewis 
burns his shells in the following manner. A pen of sixteen or seventeen 
feet square, is built of round green pine logs, (notched where they lock, 
so as to come as close together as their form will allow,) and with a floor of 
similar logs, chinked with smaller pieces, so as to prevent the shells drop- 
ping through. The bottom logs of the kiln are laid on four corner blocks, of 
twelve inches, so as to leave a vacancy of twelve or fifteen inches between 
the earth and the bottom of the floor, which is to be packed closely with dry 
wood. The walls of the pen are raised about nine feet ; and about one 
hundred logs of six to eight inches through (which these now put up seemed 
to be,) usually serve for the floor and side walls. The shells are thrown in, 
and in layers of different degrees of thickness, according to their order, and 
separated by thin layers of pine wood, cut eight feet long, and split to the 
usual size for fuel. The size of the last kiln burnt by Mr. L., according to 
his memorandum book, was as follows: 

Kiln 1 7 feet square and 9 feet high, inside measure. 

The lowest bed of shells 8 inches (he thinks it might as well have been 
12 inches.) 

The second bed of shells 12 inches, 
third 1G 

fourth 20 

fifth 1 5 

sixth 6 

The layers of wood between were equal, and about six inches. The kiln 
took one hundred hogsheads of shells, and consumed ten cords of wood in 
the layers, and three more of foundation or kindling wood. The kiln should 
be fired in calm weather ; and if the wind afterwards rises, it should be 
kept off as much as possible by a screen of brush, or whatever may be most 
convenient. 

The burning (in preference) is done in March, or as soon after as may be. 
The newly burnt shells are carted to the field as soon as they are cold enough, 
and deposited in small parcels of a measured heaped half bushel each, at 
distances of six yards. The field is previously ploughed, and marked off 
carefully in checks of six yards square. These small heaps of shells are 
immediately covered completely, but not heavily, by the surrounding earth 
being drawn over them with broad hoes. If a heavy rain was to catch the 
lime before this covering, much of it would become a wet sticky mortar, 
difficult to manage, and impossible to distribute equally. When secured in 
the heaps, the moisture absorbed from the earth will usually slake the lime 
in forty-eight hours. The heaps are then cut down and mixed with hoes, 
and carefully spread so as to cover the field very equally. The land is then 
well harrowed, more effectually to distribute and mix the lime with the soil. 
The quantity applied to the acre is about seventy bushels of the burnt and 
unslaked shells, which quantity is produced by burning 6 hogsheads (108 
bushels) of shells ; and the same, if well burnt, will swell in slacking to 125 
or 130 bushels. The lime is always put on a part of the field of the fourth 



288 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

year, and is put under field peas the same year. The red, or cow pea, is 
preferred, being considered most profitable for live stock ; and as that is a 
late kind, it should be planted as soon as possible after the 20th of April, 
that the crop may mature. Two after ploughings and one slight hand weed- 
ing serve to cultivate the crop; and its product, Mr. L. thinks, though, with- 
out having made any experiment or careful estimate, usually pays the whole 
expense of the liming."— F. Register, vol. i. p. 18. 

The shells sold to the farmers are obtained at the various landings on 
York and the lower James river and their tributaries, where oysters are 
opened in great quantities for sale. On some of the lands bordering the 
Potomac, there are much cheaper and universal sources of supply, in ancient 
accumulation, of shells called " Indian banks," and which are now used to 
burn lime from for manure for farms in the Northern Neck, Very recently 
there has been brought into use a new source of supply on James river. 
This is the young living oysters and old shells which together form entire 
shoals in some parts of the river, and which are raked up in mass to load 
the vessels. These shells are sold at 50 cents the hogshead or less. As 
these are mostly small and thin shells, they could more easily than ordinary 
shells be pulverized by a mill-stone running on its circumference, as in a 
tanner's bark mill; and in this manner ali the rich animal matter would be 
preserved, which is destroyed by burning. 



NOTE IX. 

ON THE SOURCES OF MALARIA, OR OP AUTUMNAL DISEASES, IN VIRGINIA, AND THE 
MEANS OF REMEDY AND PREVENTION. 

(From the Farmers' Register of July, 1838.) 

Throughout the course of publication of the Farmers' Register, it has 
been one of the main objects of the editor to attract attention to the causes 
and effects of malaria, or unhealthy marsh effluvia, and to enforce his views 
as to the means of restraining or preventing this greatest of the evils under 
which the eastern half of Virginia suffers. To forward this end, every fit 
opportunity has been availed of; and the subject has been treated, directly 
and at length, or incidentally and slightly, in various articles in these vo- 
lumes. But there has been found but little if any encouragement to perse- 
vere in this course. The editor has, alone, and without any certain evidence 
of approval cf his views and his course, and certainly without any practical 
adoption of his recommendations, labored in this cause, which, to his un- 
derstanding, demands the support of all, on considerations of economy and 
agricultural improvement and profit, as well as on the more important 
grounds of the strength or frailty of the tenure by which the people of half 
of our entire territory possess and enjoy health, happiness, and even life. 
It is under such impressions of the high importance of the whole subject, 
that the readers of this journal are again invited to its consideration ; and, 
probably, for the last time, by the present writer, if there continues to be no 
more interest excited, and action produced, in regard to the evils existing, 
and which are multiplied ten-fold in power by the ignorant and careless 
legislation of this commonwealth. 

The views of the writer on this subject were presented generally, and at 
some length, in an editorial article (pp. 41 to 43) in vol. v., Farmers' Regis- 
ter, on the causes of and means for preventing the formation and the effects 
of malaria in eastern Virginia ; and also in sundry shorter incidental pas- 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 289 

sages in each of all the volumes, in connexion with articles on marshes, 
mill-ponds, and canals, &c. But as it would bo requiring too much of read- 
ers that they should either r< ', or carefully refer to these various 
articles, a general, though slight view of the whole subject will be here 
presented, sustained by additional facts, which have been recently learned 
by personal inquiry and observation. 

That the common autumnal or bilious diseases of eastern Virginia, and 
especially of the tide-water portion, which is most subjected to them, are 
principally caused by the effluvia rising from wet Ian is, is a matter in 
which all concur. The general difference between the presence of these 
disorders, in low, wet, or marshy countries, and their absence, or scarcity, 
in mountainous and dry regions, is so great, that none can mistake, or 
differ about, the general causes and effects. But from this general opinion, 
which is true in the main, (though having numerous and important excep- 
tions,) there is deduced the erroneous conclusion, that these opposite gene- 
ral effects produced on health, in extensive regions either generally low and 
wet, or generally hilly and dry, are produced by these opposite natural 
features, and cannot be very materially altered by art; as art cannot mate- 
rially alter the natural character of the land. Or, in other words, that 
nature has made one great region low and sickly, and another high and 
healthy; and that man cannot do much to counteract the law of nature in 
either case. Perhaps none may maintain this position, in argument, without 
admitting partial exceptions in numerous particular cases and localities. 
Indeed, every man will say that care may lessen the causes and mitigate 
the operation of malaria, in a sickly region, or increase both in a healthy 
one. But, judging from the action of both the people and their laws, which 
speaks more strongly than words, it may be inferred that it is a general 
belief that such bendings of nature from her course can be but slight, in 
particular cases, and scarcely worth estimating on a broad scale, or through 
an extensive country, In entire conformity with this supposition, it is a 
notorious fact that very few individuals in Virginia have done any thing 
considerable, or on system, to protect their dwelling places from malaria ; 
and the government has not only done nothing for general protection, but 
has actuall5 r caused the worst of the existing evils, and is encouraging their 
continued increase and aggravation, by the fixed legal policy of the country; 
which permits the raising of mill-ponds, that are productive of little else 
than malaria and disease; and indirectly, but effectually, forbids the drain- 
age of extensive swamps. The production and deadly effects of malaria, 
in eastern Virginia, for the greater part, is to be charged, not to the laws of 
God, but to the laws of man ; which, in this respect, operate to put away or 
sacrifice some of the most precious of God's blessings, offered to all, to 
gratify the whims, or the blind and often mistaken avarice, of a few indivi- 
duals. There are, doubtless, great natural differences as to the sickliness 
of differently situated regions; as between the low tide-water region of 
Virginia, the central or hilly, and also the mountainous region. But, in 
their natural state, before damaged by mill-ponds and other of man's mis- 
called improvements, the low-country was probably less afflicted by malaria 
than the hilly parts now are, or may be rendered by the full extension of 
these injurious operations of man. This is a matter of mere supposition, 
and cannot possibly be subjected to the rigid test of proof by known facts. 
But, from reasoning, and inferences from such facts as are known, it seems 
most probable that some of the now most sickly counties on tide-water 
were, at the first settlement of the country, less sickly than the hilly and 
originally very healthy county of Brunswick, for example, has been in 
latter years. 



290 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

Even the very important fact of increased and increasing sickliness in this 
country, is entirely without support from any known written authority ; and 
the whole subject has been so little examined, or thought of, that to most 
readers the position here assumed may be entirely new. There are no sta- 
tistics of health to which we can refer for proof. But general and historical 
facts, few as they are, if fairly considered, will suffice to place the question 
beyond dispute. 

Before proceeding further in this part of the argument, let me remark that I 
am opposed in the outset, and shall be opposed throughout, by the reluctance 
felt by every individual to believe, or if believing, to admit, that his particular 
property, or place of residence, is more sickly than others, or has become more 
so than in former times. This self-delusion, and consequent, though per- 
haps undesigned effort to deceive others, is almost universal. Each man 
claims for his own place more healthiness than in truth ought to be admit- 
ted; and the combined effect of all these individual claims, is to maintain 
that the whole country is more healthy than is true, and more so than each 
individual would have claimed for it, with the exception of his own farm and 
his own neighborhood. It is against this universal prejudice and obstruction 
that I have had to contend in seeking for facts, and shall have to contend in 
argument ; and, with such opposition, there is but small hope of maintain- 
ing my ground, or producing conviction of the soundness of my views, in 
the minds of those who have so prejudged the case. 

One of the strongest proofs of the greater former healthiness of the low 
country, was the settlement of our English ancestors having been made 
and continued at Jamestown. It was on May 13th, when they landed; and 
now, a residence on that spot, or in that region, continued for five months 
after that time of the year, would be fatal to half of the strangers from a 
northern climate, even though provided with all the comforts and necessaries 
which a long-settled country affords, and all of which the first settlers most 
deplorably needed. It is true, that for some years after the first settlement, 
there was much sickness, and numerous deaths ; and that in fact the infant 
colony was more than once on the point of extinction. But these diseases 
and deaths do not seem, from the direct and the still stronger indirect testi- 
mony of history, to have been attributed by the sufferers to an unhealthy 
location ; and there were sufficient other causes for all that was suffered, in 
the usual and unavoidable privations of the first colonists of a new and sa- 
vage country, added to the extreme improvidence and mismanagement of 
these settlers, and their government, as detailed in history. Even after 
several years had passed, and though cultivating a very fertile soil, and 
aided by annual supplies of food from England, and with all the resources 
of trade with the savages, hunting and fishing, still, want of food was one 
of the greatest causes of disease and death. Of course, there must have 
been, under any circumstances, more or less of disease caused by malaria ; 
and although any predisposition to such disease, naturally induced, must 
have been violently urged to action, and aggravated to ten-fold malignity, 
by hunger, intemperance, exposure of every kind, depression of spirits, and 
every other painful emotion of the minds of men in such desperate straits, 
still, even with all these aids, the prevalence of autumnal diseases, the effect 
of malaria, was not so conspicuous as to stamp the character of sickliness 
on the location, or to induce even the proposition to remove the colony, or 
afterwards its seat of government, to a much higher or more healthy situa- 
tion. The unavoidable inference seems to be, that the great sickliness of 
the early settlers was not attributed by themselves to the climate. Yet, this 
was a question on which they could not possibly have been deceived. Ar 
even if most others had been deceived, by ignorance, and the want of 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. t.g • 

perience of the effects of malaria, this could not have been the case with 
Smith, the most efficient director, and the true founder of the colony; who 
would have known better, not only by his general intelligence, but also by 
his experience of such effects, gained in his campaigns against the Turks. 
It may be alleged, that fear of the savages, stronger than the dread of dis- 
ease, caused the choice of, and after continuance on, an unhealthy spot, be- 
cause it was more easily guarded on the land-side, and perfectly accessible 
to ships. But spots equally favorable for defence, and on deep water, 
might have been selected at first, much higher up the river ; and yet James- 
town and its immediate neighborhood continued to be the chief place in Vir- 
ginia, after the power of the savages had been crushed, and settlements had 
been extended to distant and inland places. The proof of my position 
would be sufficiently proved by any attempt made now to settle Englishmen, 
just arrived, on the border of almost any of our tide-waters, and especially 
about the junction of the salt and fresh waters. Several such trials have 
been made with foreign laborers ; but the first autumn was enough to put 
an end to each experiment, by inflicting so much disease and death as to 
prevent any of the foreigners remaining through another season, who could 
possibly move away. 

There can be but little doubt also, but there was much less of autumnal 
diseases, or at least of violent and fatal diseases, before the revolutionary 
war than now. There was no such thing then, as the healthy residents leav- 
ing home in summer, as is so usual now, to spend the sickly season among 
the mountains, or at the north ; nor does it appear that there was much 
suffering for want of such resources, although the climate must even then 
have become very far more unhealthy than in the early times of the colony. 

Another striking proof of the increased tendency of the country to pro- 
duce disease, even within the last sixty years, is presented by history, in the 
circumstances of the occupation of Yorktown by the British army in 1781, 
and the siege carried on by the American army ; and especially in regard 
to the hastily-levied militia from the mountains, and other high and healthy 
parts of Virginia. Cornwallis chose his position first in Portsmouth, and 
afterwards in Yorktown, with a view to health, as well as defence, to await 
the arrival of reinforcements from New York. His army was concentrated 
at Yorktown, August 22. Washington reached Williamsburg, September 
14, and the American army moved on thence to invest Yorktown, Sept. 
SO, and the surrender of the British army was made on Oct. 19th. Thus, 
both armies were exposed to the worst part of the malaria season, and the 
British army to the whole of it. Among the besiegers were raw militia, 
just raised for the occasion, from Rockbridge county, (of which portion I 
have been more particularly informed,) and probably from sundry others 
of the mountain counties. There was certainly much sickness, and espe- 
cially among the British troops ; but not more than is usual in camps, and 
especially in besieged camps, suffering all the privations incidental to the 
confined situation. It does not appear, from the very slight notices in his- 
tory, that there was more sickness than might have been expected if the 
same circumstance had occurred in the hilly middle region of Virginia. Yet, 
if the like circumstances could occur now, it can scarcely be doubted but 
that every soldier, not already acclimated, and accustomed to malaria, would 
be made sick ; and that probably half of those just brought from breathing 
the pure mountain air, would never return home. 

Another indirect proof is presented in the great and deplorable decline of 

most of the lower counties of Virginia in wealth, and in the usual accom- 

animents of wealth, which formerly made a residence delightful in many 

T hborhoods in which there is nothing now left to invite any one to re- 



292 CALCAREOUS MANUKES— APPENDIX. 

main. It is true that other causes, political and economical, have concurred 
to produce this result. But the most potent of the several causes was the 
slow and silent, but continual and increasing warfare on the health of body 
and mind, made by the action of malaria. By its operation, when scarcely 
amounting in effect to positive and known disease, the mind is sickened 
even more than the body. The buoyant spirits are tamed — energy is re- 
laxed — the keen appetite for enjoyment (which is the greater part of hap- 
piness) is lost; and the victims of malaria cease to strive, or to enjoy; and 
either sink into apathy and listlessness, or, urged by discontent, more than 
by any remains of energy, take the final step of emigration to the western 
wilderness. 

But the upper country furnishes still stronger evidence, because of posi- 
tive and unquestionable facts, to prove an increase of the product and effect 
of malaria. The hilly country between the falls of the rivers and the 
nearest mountain-range, with the exception of some comparatively small 
spots, on swamps and rivers, was formerly as free from this scourge as is 
now the mountain region. But the number and the extent of the unhealthy 
places have greatly increased within the memory of those now living; and 
some large districts have been, in particular seasons, as subject to bilious dis- 
eases, and still more to violent ones, than the tide-water region. Indeed, in 
very many places, universally believed (unless by the mill-owners' to be in- 
juriously affected by the neighborhood of mill-ponds, these effects of malaria 
are of as regular recurrence in autumn, as on places near to any of the 
marshes of the low country; and are much more dangerous. 

The third and highest region seems destined, notwithstanding its better 
defence in mountain sides and peaks, and the rarity of flat surface on which 
to form wide and shallow ponds, to take its turn next, as the victim of ma- 
laria. Already, in that part of the mountain region in and about Frederick 
county, there have been particular autumns which seemed almost pestilen- 
tial. And though such cases of general and virulent disease are rare, 
particular cases of autumnal diseases are now frequent in many such places 
where they were rarely heard of thirty years ago. 

These statements may be considered by some as exaggerated or unfound- 
ed—and, by others, if admitted to be true, considered as showing the want 
of both patriotism and policy, in the writer's thus exposing the enormous 
existing and still growing evils under which the country suffers. In regard 
to the former point, I admit, in advance, the scarcity of particular and posi- 
tive facts, to serve as proofs, which is found throughout the whole subject ; 
and that among the existing difficulties of obtaining such facts, (and still 
more by a single and unaided individual, who has had little opportunity to 
make proper researches, ) I have to rely mostly upon general and loose 
opinions, and deductions from general facts. Hence there is much liability 
of mistake. But if the public can in any way be driven to the examination 
of this subject, and numerous individuals be excited to search for facts, 
whether to sustain or to oppose my views, the arrangement and presentation 
of such facts will serve as materials, which are now almost totally wanting, 
and will enable this all-important question to be hereafter properly discussed 
and correctly determined. 

If there were no hope for relief, there would certainly be no use in ex- 
posing or dwelling upon these distresses of our people. But, though no- 
thing yet has been done for relief, nor does it seem to have entered the 
imagination of our legislators, and though all they have yet done has been 
to add strength to the evil, still it is my confident opinion, that relief may 
be furnished for this sorest evil of the land, and furnished easily and pi" 
fitably ; and that it is perfectly within the power of man to dry up the r 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 293 

fruitful sources of malaria, and to bring the whole, or very nearly the 
whole of Virginia, to a state as healthy as that of any other country in the 
world. If such a result is indeed attainable, it is worth making every 
possible exertion for ; and nothing will induce the smallest exertion, either 
by the people or the government, except a full exposure of the enormity of 
the evil which presses upon the country. 

It is not my purpose to attempt to investigate the cause and trace the 
mode of operation of malaria. Though worthy of every care and labor 
as a scientific question, it is one which as yet has entirely baffled every 
attempt at exposition. But though it is as yet unknown what is the 
chemical character of this subtle fluid, and what are the precise circum- 
stances under which it is evolved, and what is the manner in which it 
exerts its baneful influence— still the main and most important points admit 
of no question. Thus, and in general, all persons, from the most ignorant 
to the most learned, agree that there is something which rises into the at- 
mosphere in hot weather, from marshy ground and stagnant waters, which 
tends to produce the common, autumnal fevers in those who are much ex- 
posed to breathing the air contaminated by this admixture. 

Though I speak of malaria as an aeriform fluid, or gaseous product, it is 
not designed to found my argument upon the truth of that opinion. Though 
for convenience, as well as because inclining to the belief, malaria is here 
spoken of as a material aeriform product, yet, it may be also used as a 
term to designate the particular condition of circumstances produced by 
certain causes, which condition operates to produce and strengthen autum- 
nal diseases. Still less do I mean to maintain that malaria, even if material, 
is of any one kind of gas, or any particular combination of several kinds. 
Besides these, there are many other common points on which the learned 
investigators of malaria totally disagree; and so much does each one insist 
upon deducing general principles from his own particular facts, (or sup- 
posed facts,) and so slightly and incorrectly have such facts been observed, 
that the general reader becomes lost in the contradictory positions of 
different instructers. Thus, judging from particular and isolated observa- 
tions, with some writers, there is no condition of circumstances which will 
not sometimes in a warm climate produce malaria; and with others, upon 
equally partial and imperfect observation of other facts, the production is 
denied to be usually caused by any of the circumstances which are gene- 
rally deemed the most certain and fruitful sources. One writer, perhaps, 
has known an exemption from disease in those who lived close to a stinking 
marsh, or a stagnant pond ; and hence he denies that these are sources of 
malaria, and accordingly searches for them in other circumstances. Another 
has known the effects of malaria on troops encamped in a high defile in 
the mountains of Spain, where the soil was dry and stony, and no water 
except rapidly flowing rivulets, and the place some miles distant from the 
nearest marsh or lake. Hence he concludes, that even such a locality as 
this, in certain (unknown) circumstances, throws out abundance of malaria. 
Considering the circumstances under which most of the works on malaria 
have been written, it would be strange if they were not quite contradictory. 
The authors of most of them were army-surgeons and physicians, who 
observed the effects of malaria in some deadly region, upon soldiers not 
at all acclimated. Perhaps the author was confined to a garrison, or at least 
limited in his observations to the line of march of an invading army; and 
in a country to which he was totally a stranger, and among a hostile people, 
whose opinions he could not learn, and whose language he probably did 
not understand. If a physician of Lord Cornwallis' army, who had merely 
accompanied his march through Virginia, and been cooped up in Yorktown 

37 



294 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX 

during the siege, had written a treatise on the diseases of the country, he 
would have been better prepared to treat of them than most of those who 
have essayed such tasks; and he probably would have considered as a 
regular disease of the country the fatal "jail-fever," which swept off in 
numbers the absconding slaves who had joined the British army, and were 
crowded together in Yorktown until the surrender, and which form of 
disease has never been known in Virginia before, or since. 

All agree that decaying and putrefying vegetable matter is one of the 
greatest, if not the only source of malaria. Of course, then, in addition to 
the sufficient abundance of the material, tl e circumstances most conducive 
to its putrefaction must be the most favorable to the production of malaria. 

The presence of moisture, a certain degree of heat, and the access of 
air, are circumstances essential to putrefaction, and of course to the pro- 
duction of malaria ; and neither can take place without the aid of all three 
of these things. Much moisture would be less favorable than a less quan- 
tity ; and entire covering by water would, by excluding air, nearly prevent 
fermentation, and its consequence, the formation and escape of malaria. 

It is also one of the few settled points, among scientific investigators, that 
malaria is very light, at least when warmed by the sun; and hence the fact 
known to many in this country, that those who live on the borders of 
marshes, and of mill-ponds, sometimes escape all injury from their exhala- 
tions, when others, who live on high hills, and at much greater distances 
from the sources, suffer greatly by the disease produced. Facts of this 
kind are numerous, and of regular annual occurrence, in Gloucester county. 
The whole of the wide and very level low-grounds furnish residences very 
healthy, compared to the tide-water region in general; though intersected 
in every direction by tide-waters, and though there still remains much 
swamp land unreclaimed, such as the whole body of low-ground was when 
in a state of nature. But the high, dry and hilly land, which forms the ridge 
of the county, is less healthy; and the highly elevated and beautiful sites of 
mansion-houses overlooking the low-grounds are universally sickly in 
autumn. 

If all the facts in regard to the action of malaria were as regular and 
uniform as this one just stated is in Gloucester, there would be far less 
doubt on the subject. It is the uniform character of that county, in its 
high-land, low-ground, and also the water, and the long extent of each, 
which causes these effects to be so uniform there. Owing to causes stated 
in the description of the low-grounds of Gloucester, (Farmers" Register, page 
178, vol. vi.,) there is but little malaria evolved there; and if that, as sup- 
posed, rises by its greater levity, the regular daily sea-breeze must cause 
it to float towards the high-lands; and the long and regular line of ridge 
cannot fail to receive it, and in not very different proportions. But in most 
other situations, even though malaria should be produced in great quantity 
and with direful effects, yet these effects are so extremely irregular, in the 
places, the times, and the intensity of their operation, that they cannot be 
certainly traced to their true source; and therefore, that source may re- 
main scarcely suspected, while it is dealing out death somewhere in almost 
every season. Away from the vicinity of the sea, nothing can be more 
irregular than the winds; yet, supposing a mill-pond to produce a regular 
and large supply of malaria every autumn, (though that supply is itself 
extremely irregular,) it depends upon the direction, force, and continuance 
of every change of wind, whether and where, and to what extent the 
malaria will produce disease. It is therefore not at all strange, nor opposed, 
as is thought by some, to the regular annual production of malaria or 
causes of sickness by each mill-pond, that the visitations of sickness, at any 



CALCAREOUS MANURES- APPENDIX. £95 

one place, should be very irregular, and the difference be often totally inex- 
plicable from any known causes, or variation of circumstances. 

According to the views presented, there must be more or less malaria 
(or the gaseous products which, under certain conditions, form malaria,) 
evolved in every country where there is much vegetable matter to ferment, 
and sufficient warmth of climate to carry on fermentation. But, in the 
small quantity which is unavoidably extricated in every such temperate 
and fertile country, these products seem to be harmless. Perhaps a small 
quantity is absorbed as food by growing plants, and this aids the produc- 
tion of the earth. If so, this beneficial operation is made easy by another 
quality of malaria, which is well established as true. This is, that though 
it is so expanded by the sun as to rise above the lower air, still it remains 
on the surface of the earth in the night, after being extricated, or perhaps 
descends again from above, when condensed by the cold night air, and of 
course lies in contact, through the night, with growing plants. Hence it is, 
that sleeping on the ground, or in the lowest apartments, and being exposed 
to the night-air, invites the attacks and increases the virulence of malaria; 
and hence also it is, that the keeping of fires at night, even in warm 
weather, has been found highly useful to health, in places much subject tJ 
autumnal fevers. 

Though it may then be theoretically true that every good soil, in warm or 
temperate climates, is throwing out malaria to a certain extent, it is only 
large quantities that are hurtful ; and in practice, we have only, if possible, 
to avoid the formation of the hurtful excess of the products of fermentation. 
If, in lower Virginia, we can guard against the existing and increasing 
excess of malaria, our situation would be one of the healthiest in the world. 
For while we are comparatively free from the many and fatal disorders of 
the lungs to which the inhabitants of northern, and what are usually and 
improperly called healthy countries are peculiarly subject, we have no 
source of disease peculiar to our location, save this one, which, I fully be- 
lieve, it is within our power to guard against. 

Putrefying animal matter alone, however offensive in scent, is supposed 
not to produce malaria. It cannot be doubted but that decomposing vege- 
table matter is its source, because there is no production of it where there 
is no such material. Still, vegetable matter alone, or even when mixed 
with some putrescent animal matter, does not seem generally to produce 
malaria in great quantity, or with manifestly injurious effects on health. 
Thus, the gradual fermentation and rotting of the litter in cattle-yards, 
when left to stand through summer and autumn, or when the same was 
heaped and so left, (as was formerly the general practice in lower Virginia 
on all farms where manure was an object of care,) never was known to be 
certainly and highly injurious to the residents on the farm. Doubtless, 
malaria, and to an injurious extent, was always thus produced ; but I have 
never known a sensible difference in regard to health, between years when 
either of the practices above-named were pursued, and when the material was 
carried out and applied to the fields in the spring, before fermenting. Yet, 
if judged by the test of some of the causes and effects as described and 
reasoned from by writers on malaria, one well-filled yard of litter, rotting 
through summer, ought to have produced enough malaria to kill half the 
inhabitants of the farm ; and effects, in generai, which would have been so 
disastrous, and so sure, as to leave no doubt of the cause of the evils, and 
of the absolute necessity of preventing their future recurrence. 

But the putrefaction of vegetable matter, mixed with other things, as 
earth and water, and under peculiar circumstances, (though neither the 
precise admixture nor the circumstances are known,) produces disease to 



296 CALCAREOUS MANURES- APPENDIX. 

such extent, that there is no doubting or mistaking the connexion of causes 
and effects. Such sure and abundant, sources of malaria are the following 
materials: 1st, The putrid and stinking water of stagnant ponds, partially- 
dried by the heat of summer. 2d, The mud bottoms of such ponds, or of 
streams reduced by drought, rich in decomposed vegetable matter, and left 
bare of water only in summer. 3d, Fresh-water marshes, of vegetable 
soil, frequently, but not regularly, covered by the tides. 4th, Fresh-water 
marshes, laid dry by embankments, and thereby permitted to rot away ra- 
pidly. 5th, The meeting of salt and fresh waters on land full of vegetable 
matter. Of these several and most important sources of malaria, I deem 
the third (fresh-water marshes in their natural state) to be the least hurtful ; 
and that the sources numbered 1st, 2d, 4th, and 5th, increase in virulence 
in the order in which they are named. The greater evils produced by the 
last are universally admitted, but still by an erroneous deduction from the 
premises. The belt of the tide-water region of Virginia, in which the fresh 
water flowing down the rivers mingles with the refluent salt water from 
the ocean, is well known to be more subject to autumnal diseases than any 
other extensive space in the country. The breadth of this belt varies much 
in different seasons. The parts of the rivers in which the fresh and salt 
waters meet, and where each alternately has possession as the tide ebbs or 
flows, may be but a few miles wide, and even that space is not stationary. 
But if the limits of this belt be fixed by the highest points to which the 
rivers have been known to be brackish in driest summers, and by the 
lowest points where they are fresh in winter, then this belt may be consi- 
dered for the time as 40 or 50 miles wide, and, in length, stretching across 
all the tide-waters of the state. But in the much narrower space where this 
mingling of the salt and fresh waters usually takes place during the heat of 
summer, malaria acts with most intensity. Hence the general opinion, that 
it is simply the meeting and mingling of the fresh and salt waters which 
cause disease. This is not so, or but in a very slight degree. It is either 
the passage of fresh-water over salt-water marshes, or of salt-water over 
fresh-water marshes, that causes the great production of malaria, and 
disease. This is an important distinction, and the truth or error of the 
position deserves the most careful investigation. If the mere mingling of 
the waters were the cause of sickliness, any relief for this part of the evil 
would be hopeless, as the waters must meet and mix together somewhere. 
But if it be as I suppose, the evil may be greatly restrained by works of art, 
or by simply preventing the unnatural accumulation of vast reservoirs of 
fresh water in mill-ponds, which when discharged, by breaches in the dams, 
or by opening the flood-gates, overflow salt-marshes, which the natural or 
unobstructed stream never could have covered. 

Salt-water marshes, not touched by fresh-water streams, are not un- 
healthy to any considerable extent. This is susceptible of proof by innumera- 
ble examples in Virginia on the borders of the ocean, or of the waters of 
the Chesapeake bay. It is rare, however, to find a large salt-marsh at- 
tached to extensive high-land, which is not reached by some small stream; 
and every salt-marsh of course must sometimes be well washed and fresh- 
ened by the heaviest falls of rain. Therefore all must, slightly and at some 
times, be prejudicial to health. These, however, are exceptions of but 
small practical or sensible operation. 

The view here taken of the manner in which malaria is produced most 
certainly, and acts most injuriously, though not sustained by any known 
authority in this country, nor by any other precisely as stated here, is not 
therefore presented as original. I derived it, and thence deduced my ap- 
plication to this country in a modified form, from the interesting report on 



CALCAREOUS MANU RES— APPENDIX 



297 



the malaria of Italy, by Gaetano Georgini, of which the substance was pub- 
lished in two different papers in the Farmers' Register, (p. 502 of vol. iv., 
and 460 of vol. v.) In this report the author shows, by the most conclusive 
argument and facts, that the irregular irruptions of sea-water over tracts 
of marshes, or other low-grounds, of fresh-water alluvial formation, caused 
the long continued and worst effects of malaria; and that by simply guard- 
ing against the entrance of sea-water, the country was restored perma- 
nently to healthiness. He says nothing of the reverse operation, the irre- 
gular floodings with fresh-water of s dt-marshes. But what is produced 
by the one can scarcely fail to be as well produced in the other case. The 
mode in which the effect is produced is not attempted to be explained by 
the learned author quoted above; nor does any explanation seem sufficient 
to my mind. The rapid and abundant production of malaria may perhaps 
be aided, if not entirely caused, by the luxuriant cover of fresh-water 
plants, in the one case, being partly killed, and made ready for putrefaction, 
by being covered by salt water ; and in the other case, in this country, by 
a like injurious operation on the plants peculiar to salt marshes, produced 
by the overflowing of fresh water. We know that certain plants flourish 
best in salt and wet soil, as others do in wet soil entirely free from salt ; and 
that respectively with these different growths, the salt and the fresh marshes 
are heaviiy covered. It must follow from a sudden change in the condition, 
from salt to fresh, or the reverse, that the health of the entire growth must 
be greatly injured, and much of it subjected to death and decay. 

The next most fertile source of malaria, (or perhaps what is even of 
greater malignity, for the small space occupied,) is presented in what is en- 
tirely the work of man— the miscalled improvements made by embanking 
and partially or entirely drying tide-marshes. The soils of these marshes, 
as I have ascertained by careful analyses, are composed, for about half their 
weight, of vegetable matter, and probably nine-tenths of their bulk is of 
that material, destructible by decomposition, when circumstances are favor- 
able to that result; and drainage and cultivation produce precisely the con- 
dition which is most favorable. When covered twice every day by flood- 
tide, a marsh soil of this kind, though composed of the most putrescent 
materials, is but little subject to decomposition ; because, being always tho- 
roughly water-soaked, even when not entirely covered, and by water con- 
tinually changed, the air is too much excluded, and the wetness is too much 
in excess, to favor the progress of decomposition. When the marsh rises so 
high as not to be covered by daily or frequent tides, then decomposition 
is more favored by the drier state of the surface, and, to a greater extent, 
malaria is evolved, and health injured. Hence the inference, that the higher 
and drier the marsh, the more it is injurious to health. But as soon as such 
a vegetable and putrescent soil is made nearly dry, and still more when 
cultivated and exposed to be penetrated by the air, decomposition proceeds 
under the most favorable circumstances. The soil sinks annually and ra- 
pidly, not so much by drying (as commonly supposed) as by actually rotting 
away; and, in a few years, it is reduced to so low a level as again necessa- 
rily to pass under the dominion and shelter of the water. The more com- 
plete the drainage, and the more perfect the management as arable or tilled 
land, the more rapidly is that end reached. In the progress to this end, a 
layer of the whole soil, of from one to three feet in thickness, will have passed 
off into the air in the gaseous products of putrefaction, of which enormous pro- 
ducts, a large proportion will be malaria, and the effects produced by it on 
the health of some of the neighboring population are generally so evident as 
to leave no doubt of the source of the evil. More full details on the effects 



298 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

of embankments of tide-marshes are to be found in previous articles in this 
work.* 

The production of malaria by the last named operation, the embanking of 
marshes, however, is necessarily of very limited extent — and, moreover, of 
very limited duration. Nature soon asserts and enforces her rights; and 
the hopes of the improver, and the land so improved, are together over- 
whelmed by the reinstatement of the waters, and this source of disease is 
thereby cut off. 

Tide-marshes, however extensive and injurious in their operation on 
health, still are limited to a comparatively small proportion of our broad 
territory. But there is another source which spreads disease over half the 
state, and which is entirely of artificial formation, and of which the evil ef- 
fects have been becoming more and more extensive, and more and more 
virulent, from the early settlements of the country to this time. This wide- 
spread and generally operating source of disease and death is furnished by 
the numerous mill-ponds, of variable height of surface, which are now scat- 
tered over the whole face of eastern Virginia, and of which every indivi- 
dual case adds something to the general and enormous amount of injury to 
health and to life. 

The law of Virginia in regard to the erection of mill-ponds, with perhaps 
the exception of the fence-law, is one of the most stupid, and most regard- 
less both of private rights and general interests, of all in our code ; and it is 
far more objectionable than the former, inasmuch as while the one merely 
robs individuals and destroys public wealth to an enormous amount, the 
mill-law permits and encourages also the destruction of health and of life 
throughout the whole land. It is true, unfortunately, that this opinion is not 
entertained by many persons; and that even with those who admit that 
all such mill-ponds are injurious to some extent, their estimate of the 
amount of evil is much below mine. It is my object to awaken the com- 
munity to a sense of the enormity of the evil, and thereby to induce the 
commencement, of measures of remedy and prevention. The universal ac- 
quiescence in this policy of our country, and the almost universal ignorance 
of the evils which it produces, requires strong language to enforce novel 
views in opposition to long established opinions. But it is confidently be- 
lieved that my denunciations will be justified by reason and by facts, and by 
the magnitude of the existing evils. 

There has long prevailed in Virginia a mania for building water-mills, 
which was not restrained by insufficient regular supplies of water to fill the 
ponds, nor by the insufficient prospect of business and of profit, even if 
there were no failure of water. In consequence, there have been not only 
erected mills on every stream barely sufficient to keep a common corn-mill 
in operation, but also on as many others where the water-power was either 
insufficient, or totally failed, during the driest season of every year. In the 
tide-water region, the mills for grinding wheat-flour, or any thing else for 
sale abroad, are limited to the falls of the rivers. All the others, (and 
probably there is on an average one for every square of five miles,) are 
merely designed to grind for toll the corn used for bread in the immediate 
neighborhood; and, considered merely in regard to money-cost and profit, 
it is most likely that half the mills in the country do not get enough toll- 
corn to pay for more than the costs of maintenance and repairs of their 
establishment. The more worthless the mill, on account of the insufficient 
supply of water, the more productive it necessarily is of malaria, diseases, 
and death. It will be difficult for me to make those who are unacquainted 

• See Farmers' Register, p. 107, and 129, vol. i., and p. 41, 42, vol. v. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 299 

with our country believe that hundreds of mills have been built, and that 
most of them are still kept up, and many more new ones will probably yet 
be added to the number, which cannot yield any clear profit, above the en- 
tire cost, to the owners, independent of cost in property to the neighbors, 
and the cost (whatever that may he) of health and life to the country at 
large. Still the fact is notorious throughout lower Virginia, if it does not 
extend through the higher middle country. The only reason that I can con- 
ceive for so many unprofitable investments of this kind is, that many resi- 
dents of the country build mills as many others raise race horses, more for 
amusement and excitement and to vary the monotony of their lives, than 
for profit. But this propensity of individuals could not have dune much 
mischief to the country at large, but for the encouragement offered by the 
government. According to the law, and the long-established usage under 
the law, any man who desires to erect a mill, and for which it is necessary to 
pond the water on some of his neighbors' land, has nothing to do but to ap- 
ply for an order of the county-court, by which the sheriff summons a jury 
to meet on the spot, to judge of and assess the damages that will be sus- 
tained by the owners of the lands designed to be covered by the pond. The 
jury is generally composed principally of men as ignorant and unfit for such 
investigations and estimates as the neighborhood can furnish — and they de- 
cide by guess as to how much land will be covered, and what damage will 
be sustained in the loss of the use of the land. There is no question enter- 
tained as to whether a mill is at all required by the demand of the neighbors 
for meal ; and if the question of the effect on health is even named, it is ad- 
dressed to a body entirely unacquainted with, and regardless of the whole 
subject. In fact the question as to health has rarely been considered in any 
such cases — and never duly considered. If the land that will be covered by 
a pond, though very rich, is then in the state of swamp, and totally unpro- 
ductive, such an uninformed jury as the case is usually submitted to will be 
very ready to decide that such land is worth nothing, and if S3 an acre is 
given as damages for the land actually to be covered by the pond, it will 
be deemed a liberal allowance. The court will rarely refuse to sustain the 
verdict of the jury. 

Though the use of the land thus covered is for ever taken from the 
owner, or, for as long as the mill-owner may choose to keep up his pond, 
still the right of property is not changed. This small reservation of right, 
or feeble homage to justice, serves as a still further injury to the community, 
and is not of the least value to those to whom the right is reserved. It 
would be far belter for all parties, if, when land was thus condemned to he co- 
vered by a mill-pond, that the damages assessed, however low and contempti- 
ble compared to the damages actually sustained, should have been deemed 
the purchase-money of the land, and the absolute right of property vested in 
the mill-owner. If this were the case now, there are many mill-ponds in 
Virginia which would be forthwith laid dry, even though the mills should 
necessarily go down ; because the land covered by the ponds is now known 
to be worth more for cultivation than the mill is for toll. Hundreds of 
other mills, of greater profit and value, also, in that case, would be better 
supplied with water by canals than by their present ponds, by which their 
value as mills would be increased, to the owners and to the public, and 
the nuisances of the ponds be equally abated. But, as the law now stands, 
if a mill, which will not bring in of net rent $50 a year, covers by its pond 
500 acres of rich land belonging to other persons, the mill-owner has no 
interest whatever in draining the pond, because its drained bottom would 
belong to those persons. In any case approaching to this, and in which 
there would be a gain to all the individuals concerned, by draining the 




300 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 

pond, still it is not done, and the nuisance continues long after it is well 
known to be such, because there is a contest between the several owners 
of the pond and of the land covered by it, in regard to their respective 
shares of profit to be gained by emptying the pond. Many such cases still 
exist in Virginia; although many of the most unprofitable ponds, from pro- 
per views of economy, have been drained, and either substituted by cheaper 
and more efficient canals, or the mills put down entirely. An old mill-pond 
in Dinwiddie county, which covered 1200 acres of land, has been drawn 
off, and thereby an indifferent mill exchanged for a large fertile farm. This 
would not have been done, even if the mill was worthless, but for the 
ownership of the mill and the land covered by the pond falling into the 
same hands. There is a mill-pond now kept up in Prince George county, 
which is supposed to cover nearly 400 acres of land ; and there are many 
others not much smaller, on different branches of swamps in lower Virginia. 
The larger the pond, in general, the greater proportion of bottom is left dry 
in autumn, and the more disease is therefore produced ; and though the 
draining of such large ponds would be so much the more an object of gain, 
there is the less chance for its being done, because of the many separate 
ownerships and interests. 

Almost all the mills throughout the lower part of Virginia, and also a 
large proportion of those in the more hilly middle county, are worked by 
streams which are inadequate to the daily supply of the mill and evaporation 
from the pond, even if the grinding is not necessarily suspended or di- 
minished at any time. To guard against the temporary failure in dry wea- 
ther, the full" head" of the pond, (or the level of water for which damages 
were assessed, and to which the water may lawfully be raised,) is much 
higher than the lowest level that will work the mill. The land covered 
>is also usually very nearly level, so that to raise the water 10 or 15 feet at 
the dam, will often back the water from one to two miles up the low- 
grounds. If the variation between a full head of water, and the lowest 
level, be 5 feet perpendicular, it will often cause the uncovering of many 
acres of the bottom of the pond to the hot sun, and thereby furnish a most 
fruitful source of malaria in every such case. Rich alluvial mud, as this al- 
ways is, thus exposed in hot weather, cannot be otherwise than very inju- 
rious to health; and there is not a pond-mill in Virginia, with a variable 
head, which has not more or less of the pond every summer thus converted 
to a fruitful seed-bed and nursery of disease. 

Besides this, there is the not rare occurrence of the pond being entirely 
drawn off in summer, by the breaking of the dam, and its being suffered 
so to remain for weeks or months, before being again repaired and the 
pond filled. In this case, a double quantity of bottom is exposed to putre- 
faction, and fitted for the discharge of unhealthy miasma. 

At all times, in ponds supplied by streams as feeble as most of those 
used for mills in Virginia, the water approaches to a stagnant state; and 
therefore of itself is a producer of malaria. In dry seasons, when unus- 
ually low, the putridity of the water of such ponds is perceptible to the 
sense of smell ; and it must be then far from harmless. 

Another, and in certain situations, the greatest evil of mill-ponds, remains 
to be stated. The others above-mentioned are the effects of the scarcity 
of the supply of water ; this is from the excess, which is found in all 
streams, at some times, even though the most deficient at others. 

To guard as much as possible against the expected scarcity of water, the 
mill-owner aims to hold, when rains increase the usual supply, as " full a 
head" as he has a right to maintain. When this supply is exceeded, as it 
frequently is, and greatly, if the dam be not actually broken, and the whole 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDiX. ;> (J 

emptied, in one prodigious flood, at least the flood-gates are opened widely, 
and a discharge made ten-fold greater than would have occurred during 
etjual time, if the stream had not been obstructed by a dam, and had dis- 
charged as regularly as the supply was increased. It will be evident, on 
considering these circumstances, that water from a mill-pond, whether 
discharged by flood-gates, or otherwise, must be far mure varh 
height, and in extent of inundation on the land below, than the natural 
stream unobstructed by art ; and still more than the stream opened ami im- 
proved and its course facilitated by art. An ordinary natural stream, which 
might have a very uniform discharge in dry weather, and would rarely over- 
flow its banks in wet, if dammed across for a mill, would often have its bed 
below the dam left almost dry; and, at rare and irregular times, would be 
converted to a tremendous flood, which would sweep over hundreds of 
acres more than the floods of the natural stream could have reached. 
Besides the immense damage caused to cultivated land by these floods, (and 
which kind of damage is rarely estimated or thought of by juries 
mills are established above,) there are numerous hollows made, and filled 
with water, which, on the retreat of the flood, (as hasty as its inroad,) re- 
main so many stagnant pools until made dry by evaporation. The whole 
land, thus covered, is saturated with water; ami, from the nature of the rich 
alluvial soil, is throughout, as it dries, made a producer of malaria. 

But the worst part of this evil, by far, is when these artificial floods of 
fresh-waters pass over salt-marshes — which happens in all the country in 
■which the fresh and salt waters meet; and this combination of causes I con- 
sider the most efficient producer of disease in that part of the country, and 
the thing which ought most especially to be guarded against. According to 
the views before presented, the passage of fresh water over salt-marshes, no 
matter to what extent, is one of the most sure producers of malaria, and of 
a particularly malignant kind. The mill-ponds, alone, form other and far 
more extensive, if weaker sources of the poison ; and by the union of the 
two, the mill-ponds exert all their usual bad influence above the dams, and 
spread ten-fold more pestilential effects below, by inundating the wide salt- 
marshes, which by natural streams would scarcely have been affected. 

On Nansemond river there are lands already rich, and having inexhausti- 
ble supplies of the best marl, which have been sold at 310 the acre. There 
are hundreds of estates in the same belt of country which cannot be sold 
for as much as the cost and present value of the buildings. And this other- 
wise fine country, so accursed by disease, owes its condition principally to 
the mill streams which flow into the salt tide-waters, and which are so nume- 
rous, and their sources so interlocked, that there is no spot safe, by remote- 
ness of position, from these combined effects of mill-ponds and salt-ma 
It is therefore sufficiently evident why that otherwise finest part of the 
state, for agricultural improvement and profit, should stand among the low- 
est in both these respects. Yet this part of Virginia might be rendered both 
healthful and fruitful, and the delightful region which God has permitted it to 
be made, if man would accept and avail of his bounties by merely 
half the expense for improving which has been lavished to inflict pestilence 
and poverty on the country. 

These statements and expressions of opinion will be unpalatable, if not 
offensive; and perhaps may subject the writer to the charge of being will- 
ing to injure the residents of the region for whose relief in this res[> 
is most anxious, and of the facility and cheapness of obtaining relief, by the 
use of proper means, he feels most confident. If the exposure and probing 
of the ulcer be never so painful, let it be remembered that it is done solely 
for the purpose of seeking for, and applying, a sure remedy. 

38 



302 CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX 

There is still another source of malaria, which it is necessary to touch on 
in connexion with the above-mentioned, though it has been already treated 
more fully elsewhere, and therefore will be but slightly mentioned here.* 

From the vegetable matter upon the driest land, as it ferments and de- 
cays, there must be extricated more or less of the gaseous matter which, 
when in excess, is injurious to health. According to this view, the whole 
surface of the country, and especially that most heavily covered with vege- 
table matter, may furnish malaria. The degree of hurtfulness of this pro- 
duct will depend on the power of growing vegetables to feed on, and of 
the soil to absorb and fix in it this matter, which, according to its direction 
and quantity, may either enrich land, feed plants, or poison men. In earlier 
publications I have stated at large my reasons for believing that all the 
products of vegetable decomposition, on naturally poor lands, are lost to 
the land;f "and as the ultimate results of decomposition are gaseous, or 
aeriform, they must go off into the air. These products constitute or cause 
malaria, and its injurious effects on the health of the inhabitants. But cal- 
careous matter serves effectually to fix in the soil the enriching principles of 
decaying vegetable matter, until they serve as food for growing plants. 
Hence the deduction that a naturally poor soil, made calcareous, will no 
longer throw off gaseous products, or malaria, into the air ; but will store it 
up as fertilizing manure. The sure remedy for the irregular and gene- 
rally slight degree of sickliness thus caused, is to marl or lime all the land 
that requires calcareous earth. But that remedy would not be sufficient, if 
mill-ponds or marshes in the neighborhood continued to send out large ad- 
ditional supplies of the aeriform poison. f 

The correctness of my deductions as to the very injurious effects of mill- 
ponds on health, will be denied on several grounds, which, so far as ex- 
pected, I will anticipate as objections, and state with the answers, as fol- 
lows: 

Objection 1. — Admitting generally, and to some extent, the ill effects of 
mill-ponds in producing noxious exhalations and autumnal diseases, it does 
not appear that these effects can be either so great, or so sure, as is charged 
above. The residents on the farms nearest to mill-ponds are not always, 
and often not at all, more sickly than those who reside several miles distant. 
The house of the slave who acts as miller, is usually near the mil), and close 
to the pond; yet families so situated are generally as health}' as any others, 
and sometimes are healthy in a remarkable degree, compared to the neigh- 
borhood generally. 

Answer. Near the mill-dam, or the lower end of the pond, may well be 
less affected by the exhalations from it, than places a mile or two more dis- 
tant. That part is the deepest of the pond, and of which also the banks 
are steepest ; and perhaps half a mile in length of the bottom of the upper 
and shallowest part of the pond, and of alluvial mud, might be left naked 
in drought, before a margin of steep hill-side of three feet width could be 
exposed near the mill. Further — from the greater lightness of the malaria, 
it will rise high in the air, and would soon be carried far away by a mode- 
rate breeze. If the wind be moderate, and steady to one direction, and 
still more if its course be confined to an opening by or between woods, or 
to a narrow valley between high hills, it may well be imagined that the 
poisonous air might injuriously affect persons perhaps five miles from the 
pond, and who would not suspect the operation of so distant a source; 

* See 'Essay on Calcareous Manures,' 3d ed., chapter xv , and 'Essay on the Police 
of Health" commencing p. 154., vol. v., of Farmers' Register, 
t Essay on Calc. Man., pp. 23, 57 and 89. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



303 



while others, close to its border, but in a different direction, or on a different 
level, might escape its influence. 

Objection 2. — There is not enough difference in the usual or average 
healthiness of families the most exposed, and others the least i 
mill-ponds, to attribute much of the effects to these causes. Whole neigh- 
borhoods, in some autumns, are very healthy, and in others very sickly, 
without either condition seeming to be connected with any certain and 
known state of the nearest mill-ponds. 

Answer. — The extreme lightness of the poisonous air, and great and fre- 
quent variations in the direction, force, and continuance of the winds on 
which it is borne, make it generally impossible for it to be known from 
which particular pond or ponds the malaria rises, or where it is carried. It 
is most probable that the exhalations of twenty ponds, of which the most 
remote may be thirty miles apart, may be mingled together by the winds 
of a single day, and thus combine and average the effects of ail. Further, 
if all the mill-ponds of a county furnish one half oi re and injurious 

malaria, and the other half is thrown off, nearly equally, by the whole 
surface of the land, (though some parts would receive the strongest doses, 
and others escape with having only the weakest,) it would be impossible 
to understand the mode, and estimate the intensity of operation of the 
known general causes ; or to refer, with certainty, any one effect to its 
special or principal cause. Thus, a farm relieved from ;'ll malaria of its 
own product, by marling and by drying its mill-pond, though evidently 
showing the benefit in increased general healthiness, might still be sorely 
visited by the seeds of disease from other and remote sources, directed and 
concentrated by a steady wind. 

Having presented these views of the origin, action and effects of malaria 
in this country, I can better exhibit the progress of the causes which I 
believe to have operated, and which are still continuing to operate, t 
duce the change from a healthy to an unhealthy state. 

When our ancestors first reached this shore, nearly the whole country 
was in a state of nature. The savages had cleared for cultivation but a few 
fertile spots on the banks of the rivers ; all the remainder of the land was 
under one great forest. The streams had not been obstructed by the cutting 
down of trees across their beds, (by which in many cases streams have 
since been choked, and swamps thereby formed, or greatly extended.) No 
dams had obstructed the free and regular course of the streams, and there- 
fore no great artificial floods were formed. The soil not having 
cultivated, was not exposed to be washed away by the rains into tie rivers. 
The waters therefore were generally clear, instead of being generally 
muddy, as since all these circumstances have In this former 

state of things there could have been existing but few sources of malaria. 

The first formation of sources by the civilized settlers, was in making 
ponds to supply mills. But while these were yet few in number, tb 
structers of course chose the best and most unfailing streams; and the 
ponds were also, for a long time, surrounded by dense and tall forests. Such 
hilly land as the margins of the ponds would certainly not be brought into 
cultivation while so much that was far better, and easier to till, remained 
unoccupied. Hence, such ponds produced but little malaria, and that little 
was warded off from the settlers, or taken up by the forest growth. The 
general wooded state of the country, also, for a long time, rendered the 
supplies of water more regular, and prevented the severe droughts, which 
would have altered greatly, as is usual now, the levels of the ponds. 

The clearing, cultivation, and consequent washing of the lands of the 
upper country, greatly increased the muddiness, and quantity of alluvial 



304 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



deposite of the rivers, and thereby increased the marshes both in breadth 
and in -height. More mills continued to be built, and on streams worse 
and worse for water power, as the choice became less open, and the mill- 
mania began to grow; and, in the general, each successive construction of 
a pond was less productive of profit, and more productive of disease, than 
its predecessors. The number of mills not only continued to increase, and 
is increasing to this day, and in the oldest settled parts of this state, as well 
as the newest, but gradual changes also took place in the condition of the 
old mills which greatly increased their fitness to produce disease. By the 
long continued deposite of mud from the streams, and the washing of the 
now cleared and tilled hill-sides, the ponds became more shallow* and the 
waste of water by evaporation therefore became greater ; while the supply 
was lessened, in consequence of the extended clearings of the great forest 
which had before covered the whole country. To remedy the increasing 
deficiency of water, the owners of old mills, who were not prohibited by 
circumstances, raised the level of their ponds; which, by increasing their 
surface and their contents, still more increased the daily evaporation, and 
also the violence of floods, and the variable height and surface of the water ; 
all of which again combined to increase, still more than before, the product 
of malaria. The consideration of the progress of all these circumstances, 
and their bearing on each other, will serve to explain why a particular 
neighborhood might formerly have been healthy, though having two or 
three mill-ponds within or around it ; and why it might gradually have be- 
come very unhealthy, in the course of time, by the malaria produced by 
the ponds of the same mills, or perhaps by the addition of one more pond 
only to the former number. But, in such cases, so gradual would be the 
general change, and so irregular and variable the attacks and virulence of 
the autumnal diseases, that the sufferers would not attribute the change, 
(even if they admitted it to have taken place,) in their average degree of 
health, to causes which had so long existed without being charged with 
doing mischief; and in which, causes no change of condition had been 
observed. Add to this, that self-love makes every man reluctant to believe, 
and to confess, that his own farm, or his own neighborhood, has become 
more sickly ; and the change for the worse is attributed to transient causes, 
until the former state of things is almost forgotten, and the present is re- 
ceived as if it had always been the usual condition of circumstances. 

During all this time, other causes were working to produce other nurse- 
ries of disease, and impediments to agricultural products and improvement. 
The wet alluvial bottom-lands, bordering on small rivers and still smaller 
streams, were for a long time neglected, and deemed of little value, except 
for their fine white-oak, cypress, and other noble timber trees. These were 
cut down so as to fall into or across the streams, when in reach, more often 
than otherwise ; and in consequence of such obstructions, continually in- 
creased in number for more than a century, the before open streams were 
choked, and the bordering low-grounds converted to swamps ; and those 
which had been swampy at first were made still more so, by obstructing 
the sluggish streams, and spreading them over the whole surface, and 
causing that surface continually to rise by fallen trees and alluvium. But 
wet as are such swamps for the greater part of the year, most of the surface 
is dry in autumn ; and the scanty water is then stagnant in numerous pools, 
until added to by the first heavy rain, or a flood from a mill-pond discharged 
above. Of course all these circumstances added enormously to the pre- 
vious annual decomposition of vegetable matter, and consequent production 
of malaria. Such swamps as these, formed by nature and increased by 
art, are those on the Chickahominy, Blackwater, and many other long but 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



305 



gentle streams. To form or increase their evil qualities and tendencies, the 
law has given full permission, and no small aid; but it positively, though 
indirectly, forbids the drainage of all such extensive swamps, and preserves 
them still as mere nurseries of disease. / law for permitting and 

facilitating, under proper regulations, the draining of these great swamps, 
would be a measure which would be most beneficial, not only for improving 
the healthiness, but for increasing the agricultural products of the country. 

But though the tendency of the general changes in the physical condition 
of the country was to increase the causes of autumnal diseases, there 
were numerous particular exceptions, in works serving to promote health. 
Of this kind were the opening and straightening of the choked channels 
of small rivers, and many large streams, in the hilly country, where there 
was enough descent to enable each individual proprietor of flooded low- 
ground to relieve it by operations confined to his own land. The effectual 
drainage of much land of this kind has produced so much benefit to health 
as in many cases to balance and even exceed the increasing pestiferous 
effects of the neighboring mill-ponds. Such facts would be taken by most 
persons as proofs that the increase of mill-ponds had not increased disease. 
Such benefits have been produced by the gradual draining of the ex- 
tensive low-ground of Gloucester, which in its former and natural swampy 
state must necessarily have been an abundant source of malaria. This 
chance, together with other circumstances stated in the recent description 
of that part of the country, has operated to render the Gloucester as free 
from bilious disorders as any part of the tide-water region — save the ad- 
joining county of Matthews.* The remarkable general state of healthiness 
of all these very low lands at present, as well as the exceptions and evident 
causes of the exceptions, furnish the most clear and important evidence of 
the truth of the position, that mill-ponds and floods of fresh- water discharged 
over salt-marshes are the great sources of malaria in Virginia. As stated 
formerly,! there are but few fresh-water streams discharged on salt-marshes 
in these two counties, and not a pond-mill on the low-grounds, nor indeed 
in the whole county of Matthews, save one on its border nearest the high- 
land. The facts presented here alone will prove the great and certain 
benefit to be obtained by even a partial and imperfect avoidance of the 
action, separate and combined, of these two greatest sources of malaria. 

But although the general and average degree of sickness may have been, 
and certainly is, much lessened of late years by the better drainage of very 
many of the smaller swamps — the introduction and increase of more perfect 
tillage, which includes better drainage of arable land — and, still more by 
far, by the now extensive applications of marl and lime — yet it would be a 
great and dangerous error thence to infer that the mill-ponds and the still 
remaining irreclaimable swamps had become less injurious to health. Their 
malignant effects are not only not lessened in the slightest degree, but must 
continue to increase with time, as long as the present destructive legal 
policy of Virginia remains. The growing beneficial operation of the other 
and opposite influences, have indeed served to neutralize, counteract, and 
even (in the most thoroughly marled districts) to greatly overbalance the 
continually increasing disease-producing operation of the mill-ponds and 
swamps ; but not to prevent its existence or power. The greatly beneficial 
operation of calcareous manures especially in improving health, (which 
operation has been so fully treated of in preceding parts of this work as 

* See the facts and reasons stated more fully at p. 179 and 190, in vol. vi. of Farmers' 
.Register. 

f The same p. 190. 



306 CALCARKOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

to be unnecessary to enlarge more upon here — ) instead of blinding us to 
the unabated though more concealed effects of remaining sources of malaria, 
should urge the more strongly, and encourage every effort, to destroy all 
such sources. For if the mere counteraction of opposite influences has 
so much improved the healthiness of a large portion of lower Virginia, it 
may be safely inferred, that the removal of the remaining sources of disease, 
and leaving the. beneficial influences to operate freely and absolutely, in- 
stead of merely by counteraction, would serve to make this region as 
healthy, in general, as an}' part of our whole country. 

The most important part of this subject is the consideration of the reme- 
dies for the evils described. But although the means available for this end 
in my opinion are ready, cheap, and sure, still it is needless at present to 
argue in their favor at great length. Unless the people are aroused to a 
proper sense of the evils under which the country suffers, no regard will 
be paid to the consideration of proper remedies ; and if the former object 
can be gained, the latter will then necessarily follow. 

The most important of these remedies, and of which the proper use, I 
maintain, will remove nearly all the existing sources of malaria, and make 
lower and middle Virginia healthy, will be merely here stated concisely and 
distinctly. 

1st. To prevent the continuance of any mill-ponds of very uncertain 
supply, and variable " head," or height of water. 

2d. To furnish to the land-floods, of streams swollen by rains or by any 
mill-ponds still left, the quickest and best possible discharge to tide- water 
by open canals, so as to prevent the fresh-waters passing over any salt- 
marshes. 

3d. To drain the great flat swamps; all of which require a continued 
canal to be extended from the lowest out-let up to the head of the supply 
of water, in the most effective course, and on a general plan, through the 
lands of many different proprietors. The drainage of lands so situated is 
effectually forbidden by the existing laws ; as there is no power to act, 
unless all the proprietors concur in every particular of the execution and 
expense of the drainage; which is obviously impossible. 

4th. To refrain from embanking from the tide any marshes of the usual 
putrescent and perishable soil. 

5th. To apply marl or lime to all lands needing calcareous manures, and 
on which they can be furnished at not too great cost for even such great 
improvement of soil and product as would certainly be obtained in all such 
cases. 

The two last means of prevention are altogether within the power of 
individuals, and will be used, or not, according to the views of different in- 
dividuals as to the agricultural profit to be expected from such operations. 

The three first-named means of remedy would each require the action of 
the legislature, to enable them to be used to any considerable extent. 

The necessity for a general plan being authorized by law for inducing 
and compelling combined operations to drain swamps on long and sluggish 
streams, though merely for agricultural improvement and profit, is already 
evident to most intelligent farmers; and perhaps nothing is now wanting to 
procure such legislation but the proper exertion of some of the individuals 
who are most interested on the subject.f 

The giving free vent to land-floods, also, by wide and straight canals, and 

* This paragraph is an addition to this article, as it vs*is first published in 1S38. The 
only other changes made, are the correction of a few verbal inaccuracies, and the marks of 
references to this Essay being made to suit the present instead of the previous edition 

t See Farmers' Register, vol. i., pp. 232, 386, 518, 733, 734. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 3Q7 

preventing them, by dikes, from overflowing the salt-marshes, though a kind 
of work requiring public money as well as legal authority, still may be 
hoped for, when the necessity of the measure shall have b< en made evi<; 

But there is no such prospect of success as to the most important reform 
needed, in the putting down of al ; and he who 

will venture to advocate this general measure will I I, by most of 

those whom he aims to serve, as more an enemy than a friend to their inte- 
rests, and more deserving to be treated as a lunatic, than to be respected as 
a judicious advocate for valuable public improvements. It is not in the vain 
hope of now enforcing my views by extended argument, but b pla- 

nations, and thereby prevent .misconstruc f ion, on some particular points, 
that some further remarks will now be offered. 

Even if the public mind had been prepared for a full legal reformation of 
the policy of mill-ponds, and for the laying dry all such as are nuisances to 
health, there would be no accompanying necessity for injuring the private 
interests of mill-owners, nor of causing material loss or inconvenience to 
the customers of the mills. In the first place, in justice to the vested rights 
of the millers, (however unjust to others, and injurious to the public may 
have been the original creation of their rights,) I would advocate full com- 
pensation being made for every sacrifice of value in their ponds, which 
should be required and compelled for the general benefit. But not more 
than full compensation for ail value thus destroyed should be granted ; and 
many of the fever-breeding ponds are really of no pecuniary value to their 
owners or to the public ; and most others may, to greater advantage, be 
supplied with water by canals, instead of by ponds. Even if one-third of 
all the mills should be thus put down entirely, these would be such as now 
always fail in dry seasons; and the more permanent and regular supplies of 
water, which all the remaining mills would receive from the ennuis substi- 
tuted for ponds, would render them able to furnish the whole country with 
meal, with regularity, certainty, and in abundance, and therefore more suit- 
ably and conveniently to the consumers, than all the mills, good and bad, 
now in operation. By an important innovation in the law in regard to 
mills, (enacted " !arch 2d, 1826,) every owner of a mill is authorized to cut 
a canal through the lands of other persons, if required by the nature of the 
locality, so as to substitute the pond by a canal. Before this amendment of 
the old law, no mill-owner could effect any such improvement, unless in the 
rare case of his own land extending under the whole course of the desired 
canal. The privileges offered by this new provision have already been 
availed of in many cases, in Charlotte and the neighboring counties, and to 
great advantage in regard to health as well as to increased power to the 
mills, and with great value gained in the rich drained bottoms of the ponds 
being put under cultivation. Slowly as such lessons are usually learned, and 
slowly as new agricultural improvements are brought into extended use, 
this highly beneficial and profitable improvement cannot fail to be adopted 
generally in the course of time.* The main obstacle to the early and eene- 
ral substitution of canals for ponds, wherever the chamre is practicable, is the 
absurd legal distribution of rights in the mill-ponds and the land which they 
cover, as stated on a preceding page; one person being vested with the 
perpetual right to keep the land overflowed and worthless, while others 
have the right of property in that land, to be exercised only in the never- 
expected event of the owner of the pond drawing it off and draining the 
rich bottom, and that for the gain of others more than himself. Now I 

* See facts and statements on this subject at p. 231, vol. v., Farmers' Register, pp. 1 
to 3. ; p. 579, vol. ii. ; p. 374, vol. iv. 



;$0y CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 

would get rid of this absurd conflict of rights, by vesting the full property of 
the land covered in every mill-owner who would draw off the pond ; or 
if he did not avail of the privilege offered, the land should be given up to 
its former owners, or to any one else, who would construct a canal, and 
thereby secure to the use of the mill an equally good supply of water-power. 

Each of the several remedies proposed and stated above would alone 
furnish a fruitful subject for investigation and discussion. But more ex- 
tended remark from this source is as yet uncalled for. Other persons, 
having better practical information, and thereby prepared to confirm or to 
disprove the positions here assumed, are invited to aid in the discussion. 
Let the truth be made known, on whichever side it may be found ; and 
should all facts and deductions presented serve to show that the present sys- 
tem greatly needs reformation, and to awaken the public to the importance 
of the object, then will be the suitable and propitious time to ask attention 
to remedies proposed for the then acknowledged evils, inflicted by the ac- 
tion or permission of the government. Whenever the legislature is prepared to 
act decisively on this whole question, there will be before them a subject for 
the "internal improvement" of Virginia far more important in beneficial re- 
sults than the roads and canals which have cost millions of dollars to the 
treasury; and yet which will be cheaper, compared to the profit to be cer- 
tainly counted on, than the most humble or contemptible job for private 
objects, which has yet been carried through by public expenditure, and as 
a public improvement. 

But even under the existing law, any single individual who clearly sus- 
tains injury to health from any particular mill-pond, has now the legal 
power to have that particular nuisance abated, by means of suit for da- 
mages for the injury thereby sustained. It has been judicially settled that 
such ground of suit for damages is not prevented by any previous assess- 
ment by the first jury, nor by any lapse of time during which the mill has 
been standing; nor is the ground removed by the new damages awarded 
for injury already sustained and sued for. No matter how often damages 
may have been given to the plaintiff by successive verdicts, and paid by 
the defendant, there will continue ground to sue, and recover, as long as the 
pond remains, and is hurtful. It is surprising that the law, so favorable to 
the interests of mill-owners, and regardless of all conflicting interests and 
rights of other persons, should have permitted, in this particular, so much of 
remedy for the previous injustice and injury inflicted by the law. And it is 
still more surprising after legal decisions have so clearly shown the 
remedy, that, of so many thousands of individuals who are unquestionably 
suffering every autumn from the neighborhood of stagnant mill-ponds, so 
few should have availed themselves of the offered means of relief. 

If the importance of this general subject were duly appreciated, its in- 
vestigation would become an object of the care, and be conducted at the ex- 
pense of government. If the legislature of Virginia (for example) would 
institute a "General Board of IJealth," or "Commission of Sanitary Police," 
for the purpose of investigating the subject of malaria thoroughly, and of 
reporting the sources and proper remedies, the body of evidence which 
would be collected, and the after- results, might be made worth many mil- 
lions of increased pecuniary value to the state, besides the far greater 
benefit to be produced to the health, the physical and moral qualities, and 
the general happiness of the people. At any possible cost of such an in- 
vestigation, and of the system of measures founded thereon, the public 
improvement and benefit produced thereby would exceed the expenses a 
hundred-fold. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 



3U9 



N t e X.— Extension of subject from page 150. 

A MACHINE PROPOSED FOR. RAISING MARL. 

The machine which will be described below is used at Fortress Monroe 
for raisin- sand from the fosse to fill the ramparts; and has been found by 
experience to be the best contrivance of all which have been tried for 
that operation, and for which an immense amount of labor was necessary 
in constructing the defences of the fortress. Precisely the same manner of 
operation is required for raisin- marl from deep pits, and there can be no 
doubt of this being a more effective machine tor that purpose than any 
heretofore applied. The force applied is the weight of th - oil the 

principle of the tread-mill, which is the most effective manner in which the 
power of men can be applied. 1 am indebted for the suggestion of this 
machine for raisins marl to the observation and scientific knowledge of 
mechanics of my friend M. Tuomey, and also for the following description 
and the drawings for the engraved figures. Mr. Tuomey when making a 
transient visit to the fortress, had seen the machine at work; and recently, 
after reading in the foregoing part of this work the remarks on the differ- 
ent modes of raisins marl, and having witnessed some of the usual modes 
in practice, this machine and what he had seen of its power appeared 
greatly superior, whenever circumstances may require any use of ma- 
chinery Upon beins thus informed, I applied to Dr. Robert Archer, U. 
S A Surgeon at Fortress Monroe, (to whom I, and through me the agri- 
cultural public, have been frequently and much indebted,) for a rough plan 
and accurate statement of the dimensions of the machine, both ol which 
he kindly furnished; and with the aid of these, Mr. Tuomey has been ena- 
bled to <rive such particular description and correct delineation as will 
serve for full instruction for the building and working of the machine. 




"1 Fieure 1 is a side view, in perspective. . 

i, The base, consisting of 3 piecesof scantling each 12 feet Ion, and 1 inches by 5. 
notched on to each other about 6 inches from the end, so as to be flush on top, form- 

. &S p a ^osf a 8t;t,8 bye inches, secured to the base, and braced by the 
braces f Near the ton of this post 2 iron sheeves or pulleys ere placed, one on each 
side and secured b V F '«es spiked over them. The chains pass over these pulleys. 

i I tr upright' in Dg which C t h he 8 gudgeons of the wheel turn, they are.bolted to the base 

' and conne? tea at top by the piece /, 10 feet 6 inches long 4* by 6 inches, which also 

lerves as a hand-rail for the men to steady by when working on the wheel. These 

39 



310 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX 



uprights are further secured by cross pieces connected with the braces, and bearing in 
front and rear of the wheel two steps on which the men stand as they go on or off' the 
wheel. 

w. The wheel 4 feet in diameter, ihe steps 3J feet long 8 inches wide, made of lj inch 
plank. The ends of the wheels are formed of two thicknesses of inch plank placed 
crosswise, the inside being grooved to receive the steps which are placed about 8 
inches apart. The axle ot the wheel is 10 feet 6 inches long and 8 inches in diameter, 
the portion around which the chain winds is enlarged, so as to suit the force employed 
on tlie wheel, or the weight to be raised, by nailing on strips of plank, over which a 
few turns of old rope may be placed to prevent the slipping of the chain. 

To prevent confusion, only one crane (or arm) is represented in this figure. 

The crane post is represented as turning on two iron pivots in pieces s, s, one bolted to 
the principal post e, and the other spiked to the base. The crane post is 6 inches 
square. 

a. The crane jib, 7 feet 6 inches long G by 7 inches. 

b. The strut to the jib, 8 feet 6 inches long 4 by 6 inches. Near the extremity of the 
jib an iron sheeve is fixed over which the chain passes. 

c. Is a three-quarter inch rod of iron secured to a by means of a staple, and having a 
hook at the other end which drops into a staple at i. This rod serves the double pur- 
pose of a stay and a guide, by which (when unhooked,) the arm is drawn to one side 
for the purpose of landing the box. When fixed, as represented in the drawing, it 
serves to retain the crane in its proper position. When the box is raised the rod is 
unhooked, and by means of it the box is landed. 




Fig 2 



Figure 2 i3 a front view, showing the relative position of the cranes, which are repre- 
sented as turned aside. The chain is seen winding around the axle. It is evident 
that the men must pass to Ihe opposite side of the wheel as each box is drawn up. 

j,j. Represent 2 views of the boxes, which are square and may be each about 21 inches 
every way, they will then contain nearly 6 cubic leet each. They are suspended by 
two pins placed a little below and to one side of ihe centre so as to turn over and 
empty themselves when a small iron pin seen atj, figure 2, is withdrawn. Three 
men can be employed to advantage at the wheel, two remaining on whilst the third 
gets oil' to land the box. Should the box not be heavy enough the diameter ot the 
axle can be enlarged so as to makeup in time what is lost in weight. Should it be too 
heavy for the force employed the diameter may be iessened." 

The above dimensions of timbers were those of the particular machine 
measured by Dr. Archer; but they vary in all the machines of this kind 
used at the fortress. The length of the arms of course should be propor- 
tioned to the height to which the loaded buckets are to be raised. For 
marl, any sized timbers on hand, or logs, that are long enough, would serve 
for the base (i, i.) It is however desirable that the machine should be as 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



311 



light as is consistent with strength, for the .greater facility of moving it; 
and for strength alone, (as in all other machines,) the large size of ti 
is of less importance than their being well pu( together. Two thick and nar- 
row planks, firmly spiked I and with a space left between of proper 
size for the sheeve to play in at the upper cud, would be a cheaper substi- 
tute ^n- the jib a. When carts are removing the marl at the same time it 
is raised, there would be much advantage gained in having the boxes of 
such size as to be emptied into the carts, and the measure or load of both 
being made the same. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Preface to first edition 
Preface to second edition 
Preface to third edition 



PART FIRST— THEORY. 
Chapter I. — General description of earths and soils. 

The necessity for distinguishing each, 13. Description of silicious, aluminous and calcareous earths, 13. 
Guide to the chemical nomenclature of neutral s;i'is, 11. Reasons for confining the term " calcareous 
earth 5 ' to carbonate of lime, 14. Magnesia, 16. Soils are formed by mixtures of earths, 16. Inaccu- 
racy of ordinary definitions of soils, 17. Plan of nomenclature of soils proposed, 18. 

Chapter II. — On the soils and state of agriculture of the tide-water district of 

Virginia. 

General features of the district, and character of its soils, 19. Ridges, 19. Slopes, 20. River banks 
and alluvial lands, 20. Destructive tillage, 20. Products, 2J . Slavery in connexion with the general 
system of agriculture, 22. 

Chapter III. — The different capacities of soils for receiving improvement. 

First principal propositions stated for discussion, 24. Natural fertility defined, 24, Permanency of either 
fertile or sterile character "I" different countries, or particular soils, -j."). Land naturally poor not capa- 
ble of being enriched by putrescent manures, 26. Opposing opinions and authorities, 26, 27. Evi 
dences in support, 28. The degree of original fertility is the limit of profitable improvement by putres- 
cent manures, 29. 

Chapter IV. — Effects of the presence of calcareous earth in soils. 

Calcareous earth not found in poor soils. 30. Its presence alwnys accompanied by great fertility, 30. 
Exceptions in soils overcharged, 31. Authors have erroneously taught that calcareous soils were ge- 
neral, 31. Evidences of such opinions, 32, 33. Erroneous as to Virginia, 34. 

Chapter V.— Results of the chemical examination of various soils. 

Different modes of finding calcareous eartli in soils, or to show its absence, 35. Davy's pneumatic appa- 
ratus and its operation described, 36. Proportions of calcareous earth in sundry species of rich soils, 
37. Calcareous soils fertile, and poor soils not calcareous, 39. Most rich soils, and even lime-stone 
soils contain no carbonate of lime, 39. 

Chapter VI— Chemical examination of rich soils containing no carbonate of lime. 

Rich river lands, 40. Lime-stone soils, 40. 41. Soils from Pennsylvania and New York, 41. Prairie 
soils ot Alabama generally highly calcareous, 42. 

Chapter VII— Proofs of the existence of acid and neutral soils. 

Lime in some form present in evcrvsoil, 44. Acid not considered an ingredient of soil by any writer of 
authority, and denied by others. 44. Proofs of the existence of acid in soil, 4o. Growth oi ncid plants, 
46. Nourished best by dead acid plant?, 40. By other putrescent manures ..us to 

cultivated plants, 48. Disappe raitce oi carbonate of lime in soils, and their becoming neutral, 48. 
All wood ashes contain carbonate of lime, 52. The recent discovery of bumic arid in soils, 53. De- 
ductions, 55. Supposed gradual and natural changes of soils from calcareous to neutral, and next to 
acid, 55. 

Chapter VIII— Jlie mode of operation by which calcareous earth increases the 
fertility and productiveness of soils. 

Silicious and aluminous earths have no chemical power to retain putrescent manure, 58. Calcareous 
earth has such power and how, 59. fertilizing power exerted in neutralizing acid, 61. And in alter- 
ing the tfexture and absorbency of soils, 62. 



314 CALCAREOUS MANURES— CONTENTS. 

Chapter IX. — /Action of caustic lime as manure. Classification of manures. 

Davy's theory of liming stated, 64. Applied to practice, 65. Action injurious on'soils generally, 65. 
Plan of classification of manures, 66. 



PART SECOND— PRACTICE. 
Chapter I. — Introductory and general observations on marl and lime. \ 

Fossil shells, or marl, so called improperly, 67. Improper use of the term " marl" in England, 68 ' Lime 
is, in fact, generally the carbonate in operation, 69. Oldest trials of marl in,, Virginia, 70. Preliminary 
remarks on experiments, 70 

Chapter II. — Effects of calcareous manures on acid soils recenthj cleared. 

Experiments stated, and the first and subsequent results on light Ioam,fnewly brought under cultiva- 
tion, 71 to 77. 

Chapter III. — Effects of calcareous manures on acid clay soils, recently cleared. 

Description of the worst known class of clay soils, 77. Remarkable effects of marling on such, on clover 
and grain, 78 to 81. 

Chapter IF. — The effects of calcareous manures on acid soils reduced by cultivation. 

Marling always effective on such soils, 82. Causes of disappointment and loss, 82. ^Experiments show- 
ing best and worst results, the evil in heavy marling and the remedy, 82 to 88. 

Chapter V. — Effects of calcareous manures on "free light land." 

Peculiar character of this land, 89. Effects of marl thereon, 89. Analysis [of the soil, 90. 

Chapter VI. — Effects of calcareous manures on exhausted acid soils under their 
* second growth of pines. 

Experiments allowing remarkable benefits from marling land in this state 90 

Chapter VII. — Effects of calcareous manures alone, or with gypsum, on neutral 

soils. 

Experiments difficult to conduct, and unsatisfactory, 92. Gypseous (eocene) marl described 93. Expe- 
riments and their results, 93. 

Chapter VIII. — Digression to the theory of the action of gypsum as manure. 
Supposed cause of its want of effect on acid soils. 

Gypsum of no effect on acid soils 95. When operative, on neutral and calcareous soils 95. Generally 
operative on acid soils after marling D6. Reasons for these results 97. Illustrations 98. 

Chapter IX. — The damage caused by too heavy dressings of calcareous manure, and 

the remedy. 

The disease caused by over-marling described, 100. How prevented or removed 101. The mere quan- 
tity of calcareous earth not the cause of this disease, 102. 

Chapter X. — Recapitulation of the effects of calcareous vianures, and directions 
for their most profitable use. 

Results of practice generally sustain the theory of the action of calcareous manures, 103. Less effica- 
cious above the Tails of the rivers, and more so on " mulatto land" than the theory would indicate, 

104. Effect in fixing putrescent manures, 105. Less benefit on most exhausted and "galled" land, 

105. Effects of mail in resisting the washing by rains, and in curing galls. 106. Benefits lessened by 
exhausting tillage, 106. Light dressings preferable, 107. Marling of wood-lands, 107— on " free light 
land," 108. Soils deepened by marling, and the mode, 109. Sandy sub-soils not objectionable, 109. 
Peculiar benefits of marl on certain plants— and especially on clover, 110. Eradication of sorrel and 
other acid plants, 111. 

Chapter XI. — Recapitulation of effects and directions for practice continued. 
Directions for improving by marling, 112. Prohibiting grazing, 112. The four-shift rotation suitable, 113. 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— CONTENTS. 3 J 5 

Clover and pvppuin, 1 i:t Farm-yard manure, 113. Leaves, 114 CnnsH ol reroM ion n 

large scale railing shorl of proper and a els, 1 15 Value of sandy soils, 1 !•'>• The thinness 

of soils m objectionable than sandin nness, 117. 1 m marling on soils 

of different kinds, 1 1 7. 

Chapter XII.— Tim permanency of calcareous manures, and of alimentary or pu- 
//-. cent manures when combined with the, calca, 

The effects of calcareous manures permanent, 118. Reasons for such effect. 119. Usual transient ope- 
ration of putrescent manuies, 119- become permanent on marled land, 1 19 Illustrations of bucIi sup- 
posed operation, 130. Statements in proof, 121. The future and continued effects ol 
manures supposed from the mode ol action, 122. 

Chapter XIII. — The expense and profit <f marling. 

Mistaken views of the value of marling, ami false mode of estimating profits of 1 ts, 124; 

True value of land, and of permanenl improvements ol its product!* ilnde ol estimating 

the expenses of marling, 138. Water carriage ot marl, 130. On canals and tail roads, 131. 

Chapter XIV. — Estimates of the cost of labor applied to marling. 

Proper grounds for estimates of cost, 131. Cost of the labor of a negro man, 132. Woman, girl and 
boy, 133. Horse or mule, 133. Amount of labor of several large jobs of marling 131 to 140. 

Chaier XV. — The vse of calcareous earth recommended to preserve putrescent 
manures, and to promote cleanliness and health. 

Effects of calcareous earth preventing waste of products of putrefying animal matter, 140. Case? in 
which tins power might tie usefully employed. Hi. In towns, for cleanliness and health, 142. Unfit- 
ness of quick lime for the same ends, 113. Different actions of quick ami mild lime on putrescent 
matters, 144. Supposed ami also known particular results to health, from use ol mail. HI. I' roofs 
adduced in the paving with shells of the city of Mobile, 1 146; iiomthe 

calcareous prairie region of Alabama, H7. Extensive changes from former sickliness already pro- 
duced by marling, HT. Confirmation of this doctrine, by tacts in ("ranee, HO. 

Chapter XVI. — Directions for the mechanical operations of applying marl as 

manure. 

The marls of lower Virginia, 150; comparative value of diffi renl bodies, 153. Direct ions for analyzil g, 
by solution and precipitation 100. Necessity for thus testing the value of marls, 154. Searching for 
concealed marl by use of the auger, 154. Deep-lying marl, ami suggestions for extracting it, 155. 
Descriptions and advantages of crane for drawing up marl from pits, 155. Excavation ol marl beds, 
157. Kemoval of overlying earth, 153 Draining and working of a wet pit, 159, Making roads up 
hills, 160. The proper utensils for working in marl, 161. Carts, teams, and laborers, 161. Common 
error in unequal spreading ol marl, 161. 

Chapter XVII. — The progress of marling in Virginia. 

Obstacles to the progress of all new improvements in agriculture, 162. The beginning and progress of 
marling, and present general state of in Virginia, 162. Progress and effects of liming 103. Stone 
lime, 166. 



PART THIRD— APPENDIX. 

introductory remarks ------- - -167 

Note I.— Proofs of the existence of acid soils furnished by the recent researches 

of chemists. 

Bcrzelius' work on chemistry, 167. Product? of putrefaction of vegetable matters. 168. Mould or 
htimxis, 168. Extract Of mould, 169. Genie (or humin) and geic or huniic acid, 110. Carbonaceous 
mould' 172. Soil, 172. Acid soils, 174. 

Note II.— Additional proof offered, by the production and existence of black wa- 
iters, of the action of lime in combining vegetable matters with soil. 

Biack oi dark colors of waters of certain streams and mill pond nee of coloring niattcr in 

others, 175 cause of the different circumstances, the absence or presence ol lime in the soils, 1*6. 
Proof and illustrations 176. Transparency of lime-stone wains. 177. The combination of coloring 
vegetable matter with the soil, the natural process of fertilization 1/8. 



316 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— CONTENTS. 



Note III. — The statements of British authors on marl, and their applications of 
the name generally incorrect and contradictory. 

Proofs in quotations from Kirwan, 181 ; Miller, 181 ; Johnson and Walker, 182; Practical Treatise on 
Husbandry, ]82; ' Systema Agriculture,' 182; Evelyn's 'Terra,' 183; Bordley 184; ' I' radical 
Treatise,' &c. in regard to shells and sea sand, 184 ; Arthur Young, 185, 1S6 ; Lord Kames 187 ; Sir 
John Sinclair, 187; Dickson, 188. Norfolk and Uoikham soils and marling, 188. Proofs and quota- 
tions from Marshall, 189, 192; 'Farmers' Journal,' 192; Count Gyllenburg, and late English agricul- 
tural journals, 193. 

Note IV. — Description and account of the different ki-ds of marl, and of the 
gypseous earth, of the tide-water region of Virginia. 

Object of the report, 194. True marl, 194. French marls, 195; Classification of marls, 196. Argillo- 
calcareous earth or true marl, 197. Shell-marl 197. Fresh-water shell mail, 197. Fossil shell marl, 
of the tertiary formation, 197. Miocene maris— General position, characters, Sic. 198; comparative 
value, 200. Yellow sandy marl, 201 ; yellow clay marl, 201 ; crystals of carbonate of lime, 203 ; blue 
marls, 2U3; cause of color, 204 ; proportions of calcareous earth, 20J. Accidental ingredients of 
marls, 206. Kinds distinguished by their respective shells, 207. General operation of miocene marls 
as manure, 207. Eocene marls — calcareous mails, containing but little green sand, 207. '1 heir disco- 
very, and known extent, and peculiar operation as manure, 207 to 211. Gvpskoos earth of James 
river. — Its first discovery, and known extent, 211. Descrip ton of appearance and general character, 
212; operation as manure, 214; sulphureous gas extricated from by heat 215. Description of the cliff 
at Evergreen, and section of same and of pit, 216. Statement ot strata exposed by deep digging at 
Coggins Point, 2 18. Harrison's Bar formed of this material, 220. Effects as manure, compared with 
the New Jersey green-sand " marl,'' 220. Aualysisr.f gypseous earth of dagins Point, by Professor 
Shepard, 221. Eocene green-sand marl of Pamunkey, 225. General description, 226. Of iiiffeieut 
kinds, 227. Green-sand in miocene marls, 231. Known shells of marls of lower Virginia, 234. 

Note V. — The earliest known successful applications of fossil shells as manure. 

Old experiment at Bonaccord, Prince George county, 235. At Spring Garden, Surry, 236. In King 
William, 236. In Talbot ;ounty, Maiyland, 237. 

Note VI. — First views which led to marling in Prince George county. 

Early erroneous opinions and practices of the author in regard to fertilization of land, 241. Mistakes 
discovered, 243. Indications of correct views, 244. First trials and results of opinions of marling, 
245. Obstacles to the mode of improvement, 248. Errors of practice and injury therefrom, 251. 
Corrections and remedies, 252. General results, 253. Particular results and table of crops, Sac. 254. j 

Note VII. — Inquiry into the causes of the formation of prairies and of the peculiar 
constitution of soil whichfavors or prevents- the destruction of the growth of trees. 

General and erroneous opinions on this subject, 258. Most general causes of absence of trees, 260. 
Proofs of positions asserted, derived from general descriptions of prairies, pampas, steppes, &c. 260, 
272. Analyses of prairie soils, 272 6. Formation of prairies deduced and explained, 276. Application 
of the views to improvement or preservation of IV.rtih y of prairies, 278. Exceptions and apparent con 
tradictions,279. Ancient prairies of Virginia, 279. Soils made barren by excess of carbonate of lime, 
and fertilized by irrigation, 280. The sandy deserts of Asia and Africa supposed to be excessively cal- 
careous, 280-4. 

Note VII. — Recently observed powers of calcareous earth, for increasing the pro- 
ductiveness of land, and the heallhfulness of the atmosphere. 

Composition of atmospheric air,285. Animals, in breathing, take from the purity of the atmosphere, 285. 
Opposite operations of plants, 286, which arc greatly increased by the presence of carbonate of lime 
in the soil, 286. 

Note VIII. — Directions for burning and applying oyster-shell lime, 286. 

Note IX. — On (he sources of malaria, or of autumnal diseases, in Virginia, and 
the means of remedy and prevention. 

Mistaken opinions of the sources prevent attempts to avoid malaria, 289. The effects have in- 
creased in Virginia from the first settlement until recently, 290. Proofs, 290-2. Nature of malaria, 
293. Certain causes of the production, 296. Meeting of salt ami fresh waters, 296, Embankment and 
drying of marshes, 297. Law of mills and mill-ponds, 298. Absurd operation of, and evil effects on 
health, 299, 300. Discharge of floods from mill-ponds over salt marshes, 30 I. Malaria produced from 
high lands, 302. Objections and exceptions considered, 302. Causes o!' general increase of malaria 
with time, 303. The causes of decrease in particular cases, 305. Means of prevention, 306. Benefit 
to be expected, 307. P»emedy now afforded by law against mill-ponds, 308. 

Note X. — A machine proposed for raising marl. 

Description and figures of a machine used at Fortress Monroe for raising sand, and which it is supposed 
will be well adapted for raising marl, 309- 11. 



Fkom the Charleston Mkkci;ry. 

MR RUFFIN AND THE MARLING SYSTEM. 

Messrs. Editors, — As a number of our Planters have commenced Marling their lands' 
through the favorable representations of Mr. Raffia, they will be gratified to learn the esti- 
mation in which the system is held, by those who have had an opportunity of testing it for I 
number of years past. You will, I am sure, confer a favor on our Agricultural community 
by republishing, from the Petersburg Republican, the proceedings of a meeting and a public 
dinner given to Mr. Raffia, by the Farmers in his vicinity, who were induced by Lis publi- 
cations and example to resort to the use of Marl, and adopt his mode of Agriculture. It 
will be perceived that such was their favorable opinion of the effects of Marl in resuscitating 
their worn out soils, and such their gratitude to the individual who had pointed out to them 
the means of increasing their comforts and advancing their prosperity, that now. after an 
experience of ten years, they gave him a public dinner and presented him with a set of 
plate. Yours truly, B. 

DINNER GIVEN IN HONOR OF EDMUND RUFFIN, SR., ESQ., 
BY THE FARMERS OF PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY. 

Prince Georoe Cotkt House, Dec. 12, IS 13. 
Drar Sir: — At a meeting of the Farmers o( this county, the following, among other 
resolutions, were adopted : 

Be it therefore Resolved, That the Farmers of Prince George county, in consideration of 
the distinguished services rendered by Edmund Ruflin. Esq., Sen., in promoting the Agri- 
cultural interests of this county, by the practical use of marl as a manure, and by his essays 
on that subject, do tender to him a farmers' dinner, at such time as may suit his conve- 
nience ; and that a committee of seven be appointed to correspond with Mr. Rullin on this 
subject. 

Resolved further, That we will, at said dinner, tender to Mr. RulTin some memento in 
token of our approbation of his services in the cause ot Agriculture. 

We, a Committee appointed for that purpose, in behalf of the farmers of the county, 
tender to you a public dinner, to be given at Garysville on the 28th of the present month — 
or at any time which your convenience may dictate. Feeling, as we sensibly do, that we 
are mainly indebted to you for whatever share of prosperity we enjoy as tanners, loving 
vou as a man, esteeming you as a neighbor, and honoring you as a benefactor, we should 
be wanting in justice to our feelings if we did not assure you of the sincere pleasure it gives 
us to announce to you the wishes of your countymen. 

AVe are respectfully, Your obedient servants, 

TI1EODORICK BLAND, 
ELGIN RISSELL, 
W. SIMMONS, 
\VM. E. PROCTOR, 
TIloS. II. DANIEL. 
TIM. RIVES, 
WM, SHANDS, Sen. 

Columbia, (S. C.) Dec. loth, 1S43. 
Gentlemen: — The expressions of approbation and favor which have been recently be- 
stowed on me by the public resolutions of the farmers of Prince George county, and further, 
by vourselves. as their committee, are iu the highest degree gratifying to my feelings. I 
accept, with much pleasure, the invitation to partake of a public dinner at Garysville, on 
the 28th inst— which time is entirely convenient, and suitable to my arrangements for 
closing my labors on the Agricultural Survey of South Carolina. 

Respectfully and truly, Your friend, 

EDMUND RUFFIN. 
To Messrs. Thcodorick Bland. Elgin Russell, W. Simmons, Win. E Proctor, Thomas 
II. Daniel. Tim. Rives, Wm. Shands. Sen.— Committee. 



In accordance with these arrangements, a number of ihe Farmers of Prince George, with 
several invited guests, partook on the 28th uit. of an elegant and sumptuous dinger, served by 
Mr. Thomas Gary, who well sustained the ancient credit of "the Merry Oaks." John 
Peyton Boiling, Esq., presided, and was assisted by Richard Batte, Esq. 

The following are the regular toasts drank upon the occasion: — 

1st. Agriculture — The basis of individual and natiunal prosperity. 

2d Marl — The foundation of all Agricultural improvement in lower Virginia. 

3d. Prince George county — The first to start in the career of improvement, is fast rivalling 
the natural fertility of her Mountain sisters. 

4th. Edmund Ruffin — The pioneer of Marling, the author of the " Essay on Calcareous 
Manures," and editor of the " Farmers' Register," — imperishable works of genius and indus- 
try — we deeply regret his intention to leave us; he carries with him our highest respect for 
his character, and gratitude for his services. 

5th. South Carolina — Our Sister Republic, about to commence the working of her extensive 
Marl beds, we hail her citizens as fellow-workers in the good cause, and wish them ail the 
success which their public spirit and energy so eminently deserve. 

6th. The Agricultural Society of Prince George — Deficiency of zeal the only foe to its 
prosperity and usefulness. 

7th. The State of Virginia — Rich in her natural resources, the wand of Marling that is 
waving over her once barren soil, will make her the pride of the Union. 

8th. Hanover — We wish her every earthly good, but Edmund Ruffin. 

Utb. Commerce and Manufactures, the lovely Sisters of Agriculture — May they ever be 
united, and never be sustained at the expense of the oihers. 

]0th. The Memory of George E. Harrison, of Brandon. 

11th. The Patriots of the Revolution — Could they see this land of liberty smiling under the 
hand of Agricultural industry, it would realize more than their fondest visions. 

Pith. The Navy and Army of the United Siatts. 

13th. The Fair. 

Upon the reading of the 4th toast, Mr. Ruffin rose and replied, in substance, as follows: 

"MY FRIENDS AND FORMER NEIGHBORS: 

Unused as I have been to public speaking, it would be a difficult, if not impossible task for 
me to return thanks in proper manner, when thus called upon — even were the circumstances 
of the call as common-place as such compliments and such returns of thanks usually are. 
But I am now before you, my friends, under very different and peculiar circumstances — the 
force of which I feel most deeply, and the extent of which my poor expressions can but vainly 
attempt to approach. 

I see around me here nearly all of those now living who were both my neighbors and 
friends from 25 to 30 years ago, and who, afterwards, with different degrees of preliminary 
distrust and delay, followed my example and instructions in the application of calcareous 
manures. The far greater number, however, of my former companions and seniors, and 
among them all the most distinguished and successful of my earliest disciples, have been 
removed by death. But every one, of both the living and the dead, has sons or successors 
who have since prosecuted and extended the good work of fertilization, and all of whom, 
with many others who are no less interested, I now see assembled here to welcome and 
to honor me, and to unite in testifying their high appreciation of the benefits they have 
derived from a single source, and which benefits they ascribe to my agency. I need not, my 
friends, say another word to express more fully and vividly my heartfelt sense of the honors 
you have heaped upon me by your present procedure. And in place of all effort to express 
my feelings in words, and in detail, I beg you to believe that this manifestation of your esti- 
mate of my services makes this day one of the happiest, and altogether the proudest of my 
life. And on this head, or on whatever is merely personal to myself, I have now said enough. 
The occasion, however, demands of me something more in reference to your own labors and 
your own merits. 

I will not, my friends, affect to depreciate below your own high estimate, (high, at least, as 
some might suppose,) the measure of pecuniary profit which you have derived from marling 
or liming your lands. Perhaps, from my consideration of the value of all permanent improve- 
ments of capital, I might even raise the estimate much higher than you have dDne. And. on 
this head, 1 am the more free to utter my opinions, because the results are mostly your own 
work; and the credit is due to your own good judgment, your readiness to throw aside old 
prejudices, and to receive new truths, and to your industry and perseverance in putting your 
new lights into execution. There is always in the world enough of good advice and valuable 
instruction to be had for every man's use — and the offering such is a merit much less rare 
than that of following and profiting by it. And the latter, in regard to Agriculture, is no 
small merit. For in all the history of Agriculture, there is no fact more general and more 
obvious, than the extreme slowness and difficulty with which all great improvements have 
been introduced. Very different have been the results in your case. Within 10 years after 
the first successful experiment made in this county, or the first annunciation of correct views 
of the action of calcareous manures, there was scarcely a land-holder, having marl and 
knowing it, who had not commenced its use, to greater or less extent. There were no 
exceptions, (as might have been expected.) because of the poverty of some, or the old age or 
infirmities of others. Four of our countymen, known to all who hear me, who were among 
the most zealous and energetic marlers for their circumstances, commenced their operations 
when severally at ages from 58 to 75 years. 



At this time, I presume that there are few if any persons who commenced marling as far 
back as even 10 years ago, and prosecuted the work steadily afterwards, whose farms are 
not now doubled, if not tripled, in productive value, from this one source of increase alone. 
Nor is this early and unusually rapid progress, which you have made in this mode of improve- 
ment, owing merely, as some might infer, to the superior profit which it promises in advance 
of its actual trial. For though truly it presents that claim for preference, and though that 
claim has been made known by publications, to, at least, all the reading and most intelligent 
agriculturists of the United States, still, no where else have the practical operations com- 
pared with yours, and those of lower Virginia generally. In western New York, where 
Agriculture, in general, is better conducted than with us, the many valuable beds of marl 
remain untouched. Rich shell-marl, of fresh-water formation, is found in New Jersey, 
Vermont, and probably in most or all other of the Northern States, and not one trial has been 
made of them, or if made, has yet been published. Not the least interest on the subject 
seems to have been excited there. Indeed, not long ago, the Kditor of an Agricultural paper, 
(the Massachusetts Ploughman,) and he a practical farmer, proclaimed his doubts of the 
utility or profit of lime as manure; and Dr. Dana, a distinguished and popular writer on 
Agricultural chemistry, in his "Muck Manual," treats with denial and contempt the doctrine 
of the general deficiency of lime in soils, and the necessity for a greater supply. Indeed, he 
maintains that every soil, even the poorest and most destitute in Massachusetts, has already 
an abundant natural supply of lime. Thus, even at this late day, your practice is far from 
having the general support either of the practical farmers, or the scientific writers and Agri- 
culturists of the North. Then, as to practice, and in regions more like your own, and nearer 
home. — In North Carolina, where the marl beds are rich and extensive, but little use has 
been made of them ; and none at all in Georgia, where they have been much more boun- 
teously bestowed. In South Carolina, also, very little of thought and less labor had been 
given to this source of wealth before the present year. But, it is just and proper to add, that 
however late in beginning, most of the intelligent planters of South Carolina are now well 
awakened to the value of this improvement, and many have already commenced marling, and 
some of them are making unexampled progress. The planters of that State will not long 
be behind any in Virginia in the extent, at least, of their marling and liming operations. 

The few among this company who are as old residents of Prince George county as myself 
can as well remember oar Agricultural and social condition, before there existed either prac- 
tice, knowledge, or even hope of profitable or abiding improvement of our land, or our 
agricultural condition, whether from marling or liming, or from any other source. And the 
former condition of things, and the strong contrast to the present, can hardly be realized by 
those who were then children, or unborn. Twenty-five years ago, there was scarcely a pro- 
prietor in my neighborhood, and deriving his income from his cultivation, who did not desire 
to sell his land ; and who was not prevented only by the impossibility of finding a purchaser, 
unless at half of the then very low estimated values and prices of lands. All wished to sell — 
none to buy. If a stranger had been inclined to settle among us, he might have chosen 
almost any farm in the county, and would scarcely have failed to find the owner glad to sell, 
and at a low price. And if so strange a fancy had possessed one or more persons as to wish 
to buy twenty contiguous farms, and the wish and intention had been advertised, so far from 
the market price being raised by so sudden and large a demand, the previous prices asked 
would probably have been even reduced, by the eager competition of those desiring to be 
among the lucky sellers, and fearing to miss so rare a chance ; and all of whom, so soon as 
thus released from their previous tie and incumbrance, would have gone their way, rejoicing, 
to aid in filling up the great Western wilderness. 

Now mark the contrast since presented. In all of this, my old neighborhood, and, so far 
as 1 know, throughout the whole couniy, not one individual, after beginning to marl, has 
emigrated, or desired to emigrate. Yet within the same space of lime, the rasre for emigration 
has passed over other parts of Virginia like a pestilence, leaving marks of desolation which 
will scarcely be effaced by twenty years of subsequent industry and prosperity. The prices 
of lands here have greatly increased, though less than their true value. But I know not how- 
to estimate the rate of increase, because sales are now even more rare than formerly, though 
for the opposite reason. Then it was that nobody would buy. Now nobody will sell. Tins 
I have cause to know to my sorrow, so far as personal feeling and interest are concerned. 
For I have been anxious for some years to buy some farm in my old neighborhood, and near 
to the homes of my older and settled children, aad to pass the remainder of my declining 
years near where I was born, and have lived and labored longest. And my anxious effort to 
buy has been in vain ; no proprietor being willing to sell any farm worth the buying as a 
residence. And in consequence of this disappointment, and despair of* doing belter, I have 
recently bought a farm so remote, that, with all its great advantages, I shall go to it with the 
reluctant feelings of an exile. 

But estimates of increased production, and increased values and prices of your marled land, 
even though theone or the other may be triple or quadruple, do not indicate all, or the most 
important benefits you have derived "from marling. There has been produced a still more 
valuable improvement in the people themselves— in industry, general habits, demand for and 
acquirement of education, and in all the results which are sure to proceed from these causes. 
Up to the time so often referred to, 23 years ago, and still later, the former large estates ol 
this county, in every successive generation, had been more and more reduced in size, as well 
as all lands in their rate of production. Almost every man was growing poorer, or the pros- 
pects of his family becoming worse. The grade of society had been, and still continued to 
be, decidedly on the decline. And the proprietors, having no hope of the improvement o( 



their lands, or of being remunerated for ever so great industry and devotion to their business, 
thought it as well to bestow very little. Accordingly, like the inhabitants of a city ravaged 
by the plague, and from the like motives, they thought more of present enjoyment, than of 
providing lor future wants; and there prevailed generally habits of idleness, and improvi- 
dence, of pleasure-seeking, and of neglect of business, with all tneir necessary consequences. 
Wow all has been changed. I know nowhere a more industrious and steadily thriving com- 
munity than is now exhibited in the present occupants of the same ground. Among them, I 
believe it would be difficult to find a young land-holder who is not industrious, attentive 10 
his business, and thriving in his operations ; and, if seeking pleasure Jess than his predeces- 
sors, finding it far more successfully, in steady attention to the cultivation and improvement 
of his farm. And this change, and all these results and benefits, economical, social and 
moral, are mainly owing to this one circumstance — that every man has now presented to him, 
in certain prospect, a full and sure reward for his labors. And that prospect, alone, will 
serve to render any community industrious and frugal; as the absence of all such prospect 
will as surely render any community , in the general, idle, careless, and wasteful of their 
means." 

Mr. R. closed with the following sentiment; — The farmers of Prince George county — May 
the benefits which they have already derived from the use of Calcareous manures, continue 
to increase and remain to thtm and their children's children. 

The President read a letter from the Committee appointed to procure certain articles of 
plate to be presented to Mr. Ruffin, regretting that it had proved impossible to procure them 
by the appointed day, the 28th. 

Upon which, Mr. Ruffin remarked to the company that the plate, with its devices and 
inscriptions, should be received by him with warm gratitude, and held among the most highly 
valued of his possessions. And that he trusted, that, descending from father to son, it might 
long remain an heir loom in his family as a permanent testimonial of the friendly sentiments 
which they had this day been pleased to express towards him. 

[The plate will, it is understood, consist of a pair of pitchers and waiters.] 

The following are the volunteer toasts offered upon the occasion : 

By Theodonck Bland : Edmund Ruffin — Monuments of his usefulness are erected upon 
every field. 

By R. M. Harrison : "The Essay on Calcareous Manures" — the key that unfolds to the 
farmer the ways and means of wealth. 

By John S. Eppes: Marl — It has subdued the emigrating spirit of our citizens, and stimu- 
lated them to this demonstration of their gratitude for a noble benefactor. 

Sent by Dr. Alexander Bryant: The Farmers of Eastern Virginia — Their sun of glory has 
not yet reached its meridian. 

By Williamson Simmons: Marl, and our distinguished guest, for bringing into practical 
use its invigorating and improving effects. 

By Richard Bane: " The Essay on Calcareous Manures" and " The Farmers' Register" — 
The one a polar star to guide — the other a beacon to warn against all bad practices. 

By Marias Gilliam: The two steps of the unthinking — the denial of a discovery, or the 
assertion that " any one could have foreseen it." 

By Robert Gilliam: Edmund Ruffin, Esq. — How truly has he proved himself a greater 
benefactor of his country than all its politicians together, for he has made two blades ol grass 
grow where but one would spring before, by the successful application of marl as a manure. 

By N. C. Cocke : The marl banks of Prince George — A treasury in which nature has 
placed her stores, and for which her citizens have only to check, to ensure wealth. 

By an inviied Guest: Prince George county — Situated on tide water, with a choice of 
markets, an abundance of Marl, aiid above all a knowledge of its virtues — it will be the fault 
of her own sons if she is not soon the garden spot of r.ur State. 

Bj Charles Campbell (an invited guest) — The M:n\ Bank — " The removal of thedeposites" 
all parties now admit to be expedient and required by the constitution of the country and the 
laws ot the land. 

By E. Ruffin, Jr.: M. Tuomey, Esq., Geological Surveyor of South Carolina — His appoin- 
ment a high honor well conferred. 

By M. Tuom y, Esq , (an invited guest:) The Farmers of Prince George — Their worth 
like their Marl — not on the surface. 



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